Photo by Saff

Summer Barakat

My grandmother passed away a little over a year ago. She lived overseas, so I never saw her much. She came to America to visit from time to time, but whenever she went back overseas, I did not pay much attention to her. I would be ‘too busy’ with school, or just life in general. I do not have any other extended family, only whom I lived with.

The summer of my fourth grade year, my grandmother came to visit my siblings and me. She had an agreement with my mom that she would stay with us for three months if we went back overseas to Gaza Strip for a month. My mother lived there until she got married and never returned. My brothers, sister and I had never been before. Going would mean we would get to see our grandfather, aunts, uncles and cousins for the first time. My mom’s brother decided he wanted to get married to encourage my mother to come attend the wedding.

I will never forget when I went overseas. I actually had cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Things were not so complicated. Sometimes the electricity disappeared, but it never mattered because we had each other. Although some conflict erupted, I did enjoy most parts of my stay since the only family that I had lived there.

The second we got back to America, my mother started filling applications for her sister. Her sister, Nyla, wanted so badly to come to the United States. There is over a ten-year gap between my mother and my aunt. My mother spent over $1,000 on just the applications for Nyla. After five years, my mother became able to get my aunt a temporary visa. We were planning on helping her stay here for the rest of her life, considering the conditions back home.

After spending two nights on the Egyptian border, she finally got to cross. She had to sleep in the airport for one day, then got onto a plane headed to Dubai, where she would get onto another plane headed to Texas. The night that Nyla arrived in Dubai, my grandmother called us to talk about what we would do after Nyla arrived, and how she would come visit after her heart surgery that day (time difference- night time for us, daytime for them). Even though I knew my grandmother would have surgery later that night, I did not really think about it. I barely talked to her before she went in for surgery.

The next morning, I woke up by screams and tears. My mother sobbing like never before. I had assumed instantly that the plane my aunt had boarded had crashed. Not for one second did it occur to me that something could have happened to my grandmother. My uncle had called my mother saying, “Your mother died in surgery” and hung up. Leaving my mother to suffer with herself. My aunt arrived that Sunday night and did not take the news lightly.

After a few weeks, Nyla learned English and seemed to mostly like living here. She did argue with my sister and me almost daily, but I decided to be the bigger person and not argue back. She drifted from us; although we never were close. She decided after five months, that she wanted to go back to Gaza. The second she got home with everything we bought her and our money, she mistreated all of us, said some unforgettable things to my mother and turned the entire family, even my grandfather, against us. I believe the loss of my grandmother caused this.

Without my grandmother, everything has begun to fall apart. I never realized how much she did for our family. She knew that we had no other family and wanted desperately for my mother to stay close with her siblings, whom lived overseas. She held us all together like glue. She stopped the fights over money  and made them focus on family. But now they all barely speak to one another and convinced my grandfather not to speak to us either.

Although I do regret taking my grandmother for granted; I do not spend my time grieving over losing her because that’s not what she would want. She would want me to continue my education and stay close with my little family. And I plan on fulfilling her wishes. Losing her taught me that I should cherish every single day that I have with my parents, brothers and my sister. Because you never know when it will be your last goodbye.