The Day I Became a Man

My grandma has always been the rock of my family. If you had problems you could talk to her. She took us in when our house flooded. We lived there for three years. There were a lot of us. My three sisters, my brother, my mom, and me. Nana shared her bed with my sister Lauryn. My grandma's a nurse. Back then she worked at UCLA hospital, she left at 6:00 a.m. and got home at 8:00 at night. She paid the bills for us and she still had to take care of my uncle who had cancer, he couldn't eat, so she had to feed him by hand through a tube in his stomach.

She was always there for us, she had everyone's back -- she would calm us down, and we always knew we had a place to go if anything went wrong.

A month before it happened, I was at my grandpa Tony's car business. He's grandma's ex-husband. He pays my brother to come and sweep up the yard. My grandma drives him and picks him up. Tony was telling my brother that he needs to give some of the money to grandma. He told us, you need to think about what would happen, what the family would be like if she wasn't there.

For a minute I thought about it, what would our family be without Nana -- we always go to her house for holidays and birthdays, and sometimes we all go out to eat and just talk. I couldn't imagine life without Nana. It didn't seem real.

A lot of things in my life were real. Like that my dad left twelve years ago when I was three -- I hated him because he was never there. I never had a dad to teach me right from wrong, or how to be a man, you know, to parcel out the information in the right way. You can't learn how to be a man from your mom.

When I was little, every time my dad would tell me he'd come to pick me and Lauryn up, we'd get all excited and wait. But he wouldn't do it, we waited and he never came. It taught me, don't trust people, they make promises just to break them, the only person to trust is yourself and the lord. My nana taught me about the lord. She took me to Church every Sunday. We read the bible together.

But I learned to be a man from being on the street, from my cousins, they sell drugs, they had a "whatever" attitude from growing up with no dad themselves. They had no one to teach them right from wrong, either. I didn't want to let nothing or nobody get that close so they'd be able to hurt me like my dad did -- except my grandma, she was the only one.

The day it happened was right before my fifteenth birthday. Me and my sister Lauryn were going to the swap meet. I wanted a belt for a present, it cost twenty-five dollars, and Lauryn loaned me the money. We were happy, kidding around. It was an ordinary day. We were at the bus stop when I got the call, grandma's in the hospital. We rushed over, but they wouldn't let us into the waiting room. We sat in the parking lot and my older sister told us grandma had a heart attack. No one knew what condition she was in.

That's when what Tony said popped up in my mind, and I realized he was telling the truth, what would our family be without Nana? What about when her birthday came around, how would we feel if she wasn't there? Do we still celebrate it, how could we?

All I could think was, how did this happen to a woman who always went to church, who never did nothing to nobody, who only did good? At first I didn't believe it, I thought, this can't really be happening, it's not real. When they let us into the waiting room I was blank, all my sisters were crying. I thought, somebody has to take charge and be calm, tell them it's going to be all right, that Nana is going to pull through. Then my brother came up, he was crying too, and he told me Nana had died. My heart just dropped, I was in shock, I was like, no she's not dead.

Right then life felt like being best friends with a serial killer, but you didn't know they were a serial killer at the time, they were your friend, and then they turn and hurt you. Like before the world was nice, then it took off its mask and all it wanted to do is hurt me and hurt my family.

And then I thought, maybe it was something I'd done -- she took us to church all the time so I knew there was a reason for it. Was it something I had done that lord didn't like? Was the lord sending me something to show me life is short?

That's when my mom called. I couldn't tell her that her mom was dead, I just couldn't. So I told her where we were and she said she'd be right there.

When she pulled up, everyone was crying. I knew I had to tell her, I didn't want my little brother to have to do it. We were close, me and my mom, we've always been close, even through the hard times.

But this, it was like the worst physical challenge you had to do, but on the inside of your body. It was like lifting a building with your mind. It was so emotional that it messed you up physically, it was the most horrible feeling you could ever have -- take your worst pain and multiply that by a billion and that won't be half. It was the hardest thing I ever did. It made me become a man.

So I told her. She ran into the hospital. But it turned out Nana wasn't dead. That's when they let us see her for a minute. She was all pale, she looked at us and smiled, but it was like she was not there. The nurses knew that if we started crying it would affect her, so they asked us to leave. We wanted her to get better, so we did.

Back in the waiting room I talked to my sister about how I was going to be a good citizen and be nice to the people I meet -- to have good karma, I didn't want anything to happen like that again, to me and my family. That's how that day changed me.

Because I saw my grandma one day, we were taking, we had a nice dinner, then the next day she was in the hospital. I don't know when my day will be, so I want to be right with the lord and with people, because when I die I don't want to leave behind people who I've done something wrong to.

My grandma pulled through, and it made me realize that anything can happen. So I called my dad, I told him, life is too short to hate someone. I didn't want to hold a grudge. He was surprised. He was happy. He was like, good, because he never stopped loving me.

I felt better that I got that burden off -- I can talk to him now, and feel that we don't have hate for each other. See, I figured if god can forgive and forget, so can I. You can't dwell on things for your whole life. You gotta move on. Forgiving him wasn't something I needed to do, it was something I wanted to do, a personal choice.

Now I feel closer to him. But when I grow up, I wanna be like my grandma. She is always trying to find the best in people. She found the best in me.

Courtesy of Peace4Kids.

If you haven't already visited our new Becoming Fearless section, click here for more blog posts, news stories, and special features on relationships, work, parenting, health, sex . . . life.