Up until 3 years ago, I had never experienced losing someone that was so close to me. I had been to other family members’ funerals, but they were never family I was “super” close with.

But during my junior year in college I experienced one of the most painful periods of my life. It was hard losing someone that I had seen practically everyday of my life. In October of 2011, my maternal grandfather was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. When he was first diagnosed, the plan was that he would go through chemotherapy to shrink the tumor and then surgically remove it. Even after that, he was told that he would only have about five to 10 years left to live. But things only got worse.

He was having a lot of complications leading up to when his treatment was supposed to start, and because of that the doctors decided to scratch the idea of chemo all together. By the time December rolled around, the doctors were saying there wasn’t much else they could do. After Christmas, my grandfather was officially put into home hospice care, which meant that he would stay at home until he passed; this also meant that as he became sicker we couldn’t take him back to the hospital.

For me it was hard to see all of that happen so fast. From his October diagnosis to his passing in January, I felt like everything happened way too fast. I mean, I knew he probably wouldn’t live long but I didn’t expect to lose him THAT fast. I honestly think I cried every day from the day he was diagnosed until his funeral. Through the whole ordeal, I never really stopped anything that I was doing. If anything I had to improve my time management skills. A regular day for me was going to class, then going to work for a few hours, going back to campus for another class, going to a group meeting, and having to have all of that done by 5:45pm because that was the time that I had to meet up with my mom and grandma so that we could go to the hospital and visit my grandpa. No matter what was going on, I had to keep on going.

I can also say that since losing my granddad, my whole perspective on life has changed. My perspective on guys changed. They weren’t really a top priority to me before, but now since I’m a tad bit older, I look at things differently. When I’m around guys my age, I can’t help but wonder if they’ll look out for me the way my granddad did(he was my only father figure), or if they’re even guys that my granddad would like. My overall life perspective changed… It’s hard for me to say “oh in X amount of years I want this to happen” because you never know what will happen the next day. I never expected that my granddad wouldn’t be at my college graduation or be here later in life when I get married. And if anything, it taught me to be thankful everyday that I wake up and I’m healthy and living.

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Ashley of Life of A Tech Girl. A creative 20-something trying to make her mark in the tech industry while helping others along the way.