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First I will always think of a crisp, but warm, October day. I remember my sister and I had to take you to the hospital, that night you were transferred to another, one much more capable that the first. I had to take your at home Trilogy ventilator to the first hospital before they made the transfer by ambulance. That following Sunday was the first and only time I got to see you there, COVID-19 ravaging the hospitals at that time. You had surgey that morning and we camped out in that parking lot, waiting to hear if you had pulled through or not. I remember I did a lot of praying that bright morning, even when I cursed God for this happening. I didn't just pray for you, I prayed for the surgeons and the nurses working on you. At close till 1 pm, we were finally given an answer and joined the line of people waiting to visit their loved ones. I remember we stood in that line close to thirty minutes just to get to the table where we gave them your name.
Fast forward to November and Christmas, it's the first Thanksgiving and Christmas without you present. They've shipped you to an acute rehab hospital, and we got to video call on Christmas. Mama went into the hospital to see you, and she called us from there. It was the first time since that cool October Sunday that I got to see you again, even if it was through a phone screen. You were there, and you were talking to us, well, kinda. It was hard to talk through that vent tube after all, but you were there and you were able to talk and see us.
February 2nd, 2021. That's when everything as I knew it came crashing to a screaming halt. 7:15 am, Mama waking me and my sister up. We normally got up that time anyways, still in school at the time. But something was different, there was a gaping hole in our family now. With tears in her eyes, Mama told us the news. She had just gotten off the phone with the doctors, and you had passed away. They say it happened so quick, there was no way they could have saved you. Just 30 minutes prior, you had been joking with the nurses, cracking up in your humor that made me cry laugh or groan. I guess I should have known it was coming though. You had asked Mama for your phone and your keys, you were going to work. And the day prior, you had called me. It was the first time that you had called my phone since you went in, I think you knew your time was coming to an end on this Earth. Do you know that when we got home after seeing you in that hospital room, stock still and knowing you weren't ever coming back, I signed my commit card and sent it off for the college I attend now? I truly hope you were watching over me as I signed it.
Now it's on three years of you gone. You missed my 18th, 19th, and 20th birthdays. Two years of Mama and yours anniversary with you fully gone, three without you. Three years of every family holiday that we would spend together, and I know till the day that I'm gone from this universe, they'll just continue to add up.
I love you, and I miss you EWM. God rest your soul.