It was just over a year ago. I was in a hospice room with my Nene. Unfortunately, this would be the last time I would ever see her. My Nene was around 5’3”, short brown hair, glasses that sat on the brim of her nose too perfectly, and cloudy, blue eyes. She was like my mentor, a therapist, if you will. I have vivid memories of sitting in her dining room, playing cribbage until 11 o’clock at night, until we went to bed, but not before having a little snack. We would bake cookies a few hours before and eat them with a glass of milk before we would go upstairs and watch ABC news, which at that time of night, would be playing shows like Could You Survive and Ice Road Truckers.

There were also times where we would go to lunch and then go shopping at GameStop or just go home and look at things on Amazon. December was very special to us. It was Channukkah, essentially the Jewish version of Christmas. I would go to her house and make chicken soup and matzo balls.

Other nights, while we were playing cribbage, I would talk to her about things that were bothering me or things I needed help with, and she would give the answers I was looking for. I also remember, whenever I had a half day, she would pick me up, and we would go out for lunch. After that, we would go home and listen to The Beatles while playing cards. Beside cribbage, we also liked playing Rummy and funny enough, Go Fish. We really liked Go Fish.

Then one night she fell. She was in the hospital for two weeks before we knew that she had stage four lung cancer that spread to her liver and brain. At first, the doctors thought that she just had a sickness that could be easily cured, that is until the X-Rays came back. I was the third to get the news. My life shattered like a ceramic plate. I was desperate to see her, but with Covid cases spiking, the hospital was locked up tighter than a solitary confinement cell. I was finally allowed into the hospital minutes before the ambulance came to bring her to the hospice house.

In the hospice room, the walls were a pale white. My Nene’s hospital bed sat facing the bathroom door, and there were chairs and a couch surrounding it. She was there for four days.

On the first day, the only people that were there were me, my mom, my dad, my Zadie, and my Nene’s best friend Marie. On the second day, there were the people from the day before, along with my aunts and uncles from Rhode Island. The third day was quiet. My Nene slept most of the day. On the fourth day, we arrived at the hospice house 30 seconds too late. She had passed. The only people that were there at the time of her death were my Zadie and Marie.

One thing you have to understand about my Nene is that she was THE nicest person on the planet. Everybody she had ever met were her friends, so you can understand why she broke the record for most attendance at the funeral home. Cars were lined up down the road to see her. It was so packed at her funeral that you had to wait outside to get in, and even when you got in, there was a line to enter the same room as my Nene’s ashes.

I miss her every day, but I know that she isn’t in pain anymore. I have learned that I need to cherish time with loved ones and take advantage of opportunities that may come my way. And I also know how to make a killer matzo ball.

© Zane. All rights reserved. If you are interested in quoting this story, contact the national team and we can put you in touch with the author’s teacher.