“I love that color on you! The highlights blend perfectly with your hair color,” said Kim.

“I love it too!” I exclaimed with a smile on my face. My loose curls were no longer red; she had died my hair brown and ombre. My mother sat in a chair next to me. I looked over to her. She was sniffling. Her hands were over her face.

“It isn’t so bad,” Kim said.

“No, it looks great.

She paused for a moment.

             “They are taking Jim off the breathing tube, honey.”

       I gazed at my reflection. Tears started dripping from my eyes. I quickly moved my shirt sleeve to stop them before they smeared my easily smudged mascara.

“I am so sorry, Robin.”

         It’s like they say, “You only have one life on earth, so why not live it?” What they don’t say is that real life is messy. It hurts. Not everything is sunshine and rainbows. Anything can happen to you. Take my uncle, for example: one day he was completely healthy and taking his son, Robert, to horse shows, then the next he had a collapsed lung and in the other, stage four lung cancer. I remember how scared he was the last few days. Then he fainted at home and had to go to the hospital. His face was so puffy that I didn’t recognize him.

         After maybe three days, he woke up. He could breathe without the machine. His ex-wife was with him taking care of him. I immediately had my dad take me to see him. When we got there, uncle Jim was sitting up. His breathing was labored. I was almost scared of him. He looked very loopy.  

“Hi Claire,” I heard him say in between breaths.

He could barely sit up on his own. I could see the pain in his eyes and couldn’t stand seeing him like this.   

“I love you,” he said in a whispered voice as we left for the night.

         We went to the hospital right after school for the next two days. It seemed that everyone from Jim’s side of the family was there in the hospital waiting room with us. All his family was reading, talking, or simply playing on the computer. I could barely hear any of it though. It sounded as if a bombshell had hit next to me. A lump in my throat and the ringing in my ears made all the noise disappear. Everything seemed to be going in slow motion. His son, who was only eight, sat with his cousin playing a computer game. I realized why we were there. They were taking him off the ventilator today. Tears ran down my face. Robert looked over to me.

“Are you ok?” he asked worriedly.

I didn’t want to tell him what was about to happen.

“I’m fine,” I said, and that is what I repeated to myself over and over again.

 My mom and I went to see him for the last time. He was lying in the bed unconscious. 

much less puffy then the last time I had seen him.

 You could tell he hurt. His white gown draped off the side of the bed. The room was tiny and full of the sounds of beeping electronics.

 I heard My mom whisper in his ear: “Jim, they are going to take out the tube. You are going to have to put everything into your breathing, but if it is too much, it’s ok. We love you.” We then left the room.

Eventually we were all called back into the room to watch Jim live or die. There were so many people we barely fit. All the electronics were turned off and we watched him gasp for air. His son held his hand, hoping, praying, that his daddy would be alright. There wasn’t a dry eye in the whole room. We wanted to help him , but no one could do anything.

“Amazing grace! How sweet the sound,” my grandmother started to sing.
“That saved a wretch like me!”
“I once was lost, but now am found;” we all joined in.
Was blind, but now I see.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.”

        We all sang this beautiful hymn as his chest slowly stopped moving. And he was gone, just like that. I like to think he went to heaven listening to everyone he loved singing to him. In his death I hope he knew amazing grace.