This wasn’t the first time I saw someone on a hospital bed. With their body’s unproportioned, their body a different color, their eyes showing a slight disconnection from the world, but here it changed.

The hospital we were in was not our usual one. It didn’t have a water fountain as soon as you walked in. It didn’t have only four floors. It was colder. This hospital had rooms and rooms for families and friends to sit in while their loved ones were being treated. 

The room we were in was being inhabited by my uncle. A humble and joyous person. The room had his bed in the middle but facing the doors and still leaving room for enough visitors to walk behind.

The lights had been not as white as the bed sheets he laid under. His bald head was colder due to the room’s chilling temperatures. 

My family and I awoke at four in the morning, rushing to the hospital. On our way, all I did was pray for his condition. That his head wouldn’t be so cold. We arrived and even though I was twelve, I knew what was going to happen next.

My mom made us say goodbye to him, but I couldn’t. I sat on his bed and I could not let out the words “I love you.” Or else every bad thought would come true. I gave him a hug and stood next to my brother.

It was now six in the morning, a nice seventy-seven degrees outside in the end of July. We all stood around his bed as his doctor injected him.

I did not want to cry, my brother did not either, but once our dad began to cry we knew. I looked through the tears, up at my uncle. My funny and humble uncle.

His eyes slowly closed. 

His chocolate color skin fade into a pale brown. 

His heart monitor display a green line with no rhythm. 

Everything in me went numb.

My heart bursted into pieces over my aunt and cousins screaming in pain over my dead uncle. 

The light within me had gone out as it did to his. 

Entering my home I went straight to bed. 

At his funeral I told myself he died for a reason. He died because we are born into this earth to do our deeds for God, have children, learn, and to die. 

Since that early morning in July I have not been the same but I have learned. 

Tell all those you love that you love them. Do not be afraid of what people will think or if it will sound dumb. We all will die one day. We cannot live here on this earth with any regrets.