Life Unscripted

Will I Ever Be The Same Again?

The ambulance finally arrives on this dreadful night. I see these men carry my Nana out to the dining room floor from her bedroom. They rip open her pajama top and begin CPR. It wasn't working. My Papa just pacing back and forth hoping for a good outcome. I remember seeing my adopted mother return home with my cousin. Everyone is now in shock as the Paramedic now are starting to use the defibrillator but looking very panicked.

I'm just watching them try to bring a lifeless person back. They lifted her body onto the stretcher and drove her down the street to the hospital. It was literally five minutes away.
My Papa told me to stay home and I knew I couldn't fit in the ambulance with him. I stayed home to await the news of how my Nana was doing. My older brother was asleep in the patio so I didn't mind.

As I walked to the room where my Nana and I slept in, I saw something hazy in the air, and became afraid. There was an overwhelming sorrow that I felt in the room. I went to get my blanket so I could watch television in the living room and wait for everyone to come home. About forty five minutes passed by and finally I see my Papa come through the front door. I ask him, where's Nana? He puts his head down and hand over his forehead and says to me in Samoan, Shes gone, she left us! I tried to make sense of what just happened but in my ten year old little mind I couldn't.

He walked over into the dining room where he last saw her body lay on the floor. He says come my daughter, come sit with me. As I sit at the dining table where I can remember my fondest memories were created. My whole family each night would sit at the dining table and we would listen to my Papa tell us stories of his life back home in his village. He was the High Chief back in his village and he had lots of stories to tell us at the dining table. What I remembered most was how he made it a point with my Nana to make sure that we all sat down together at the end of our days as a family. I loved those times.

I had to now shift into adult mode. I had to make sure my Papa was ok. I just sat and listened to him say, I can't believe she's gone! As I looked in his eyes, I felt the pain of this loss. He was trying to make sense of it all. He told me he just got home and she asked him to massage her shoulders but suddenly she fell lifeless into his arms. He said your Nana's last word in this life was your name! Jerusha she cried out to you with her last breath!

I immediately started to tear up but I knew I had to be strong for him. I tried to reassure him that she was in a better place now. I tried to convince him that we would see her some day in Heaven. For about another hour I let him talk as I sat and listened. It was just him and I up until almost 6:00 AM. Finally, he was exhausted from the long night.

I asked him where he was going to sleep at, as his bedroom was upstairs. He said he was going to sleep in my Nana's room in her bed. I put him in the bed as he had a few beers and took off his shoes and made sure he was covered with a blanket. I went back to sleep on the floor next to the bed. I looked at the digital clock on the dresser and the clock just turned 6:30 AM when I heard a glass break in the kitchen. I became afraid so I tried to go to sleep.

A few hours later at about 10:00 AM I woke up as I heard the door bell ring and it was our neighbor. She came to ask how my Nana was and with my heart so sad, I told her she had passed away. The neighbor left and I remembered the glass that I heard broke in the kitchen when me and my Papa just went to bed earlier.

I ran to the kitchen to see where it was. It was some how swept to the corner of the kitchen by the back door that enters into the patio. I swept up the glass and noticed a stain on the glass that looked like lipstick. I paid no attention to it. I went into the refrigerator to get a drink of water and I saw the can of Sprite soda that my Nana made me walk to 711 to get the day before was opened with the same lipstick mark I saw on the broken glass. She had told me she was really thirsty for a Sprite soda but when I got home she told me to put it in the fridge. I ran to the patio to wake up my older brother and I asked him if he drank the soda in the fridge and broke glass, he said he didn't, so I explained to him that our Nana had just passed away the night before.

I went to go and sit in the living room by myself it dawned on me that no one else was up that night and it must have been my Nana. After she passed away she came back to take a sip of her soda. That was her color lipstick too. No one else wore makeup in the house. I thought wow she really wasn't ready to go. She had a pacemaker in her heart just put in a few weeks prior to help her heart beat. That whole day was crazy for me because as I was in her room cleaning I'd hear her voice calling my name but I couldn't see her. This is when I knew my life was going to change. I knew she didn't want to leave me, she probably knew what my life would be like once she left this earth.

Rest in eternal peace Nana, now I knew I would have a guardian angel watching over me in this crazy thing called life.

In the weeks to come our household prepared for everyone coming from all over the world for her celebration of life. As I watched over my Nana I was now going to do the same for my Papa. I was ten years old but now left with a hole in my heart that I knew could never be filled. One of my protectors , my everything was now gone. How would I be able to make it through life without her. Well I never expected to see what I saw when we finally had her viewing.

In our culture open casket funerals are very normal to us. We dress our dead and are not afraid of them at all. The first time I saw my Nana , I noticed a blood tear coming from her right eye. I knew then that my deepest fears were confirmed, she was not ready to leave me, and using her last breath on earth to utter my name was confirmation to me that she loved me unconditionally and wasn't ready to let me go either.

As I had to recite a few Bible verses that she taught me while she was alive and sing a song at her celebration of life, I couldn't speak the words without tears but what helped me through it was knowing that she taught me well and instilled in me so many morals and values about life but most importantly the love of God. These things I would use in my everyday life into my adulthood . This would be the single greatest gift she left me to live this life. I am forever grateful to the ten years I had with her and I knew I was a better person because of her.

Weeks after my Nana's celebration of life, I watched as all the people who came from around the world to pay their respects at our home with gifts of fine mats and money. In our culture it is the highest level of respect to come and give your love and support in this way. It was in this regard I cherished this memory of everyone who came, but I wasn't ready for what happens next.

I remember my adopted mother telling me to come outside to meet some people. She introduced them as my biological family. They came to pay their respects to my family. I remember feeling awkward. Although I already knew I was adopted, I had never seen these people before. This visit at the time I couldn't understand but as I grew older I knew it was a way that my birth mother was reaching out to let me know she still thought of me. The sentiment was great but a for some reason I knew my life would not be the same after this was all done.

As I watched everyone go back home after all of the funeral stuff was done, it was almost one week until the last person left and our house was once again empty. I was now left with my Papa my older brother. I remember one night my adopted mother coming home and hearing a heated argument between her and my Papa, my heart became afraid again. A few days later my adopted mother moved me out to her place she shared with her now new husband. I was now stripped away from all I had known in the last ten years. My Papa, my older brother, my friends and my school I had went to since I was in kindergarten. I went to school there until the fifth grade one year shy of graduation from the school. I now had to readjust once again. Just when you think I should be embraced and cared for more for all I had lost, well unfortunately that wasn't the case for me. Stay tuned for what transpires next.