This past summer, I lost someone who I was very close to, my uncle. He had passed away in July 2008. We were in Massachusetts helping my family watch the kids and taking turns watching him during the night and through the day. We were there for six long days. My family had decided that we had to go home sometime, so we went home and we all unpacked and went to bed.

The next morning we found out that he had died that morning. I had spent every night hoping that he would get better. I was not crying on the outside, because I wanted to be strong for my family. I was crying for a very long time on the inside. As I said my nightly prayers every night, I said one special one for him. I somehow knew that he wasn’t going to get better.

He was getting worse day after day, and then finally his body could not take it anymore. He ended up living for an unexpected one month after they told him he had only days to live. I was not allowed to see him because he was very sick. They said he looked like a 90 year old man. He did not want me to remember him like that; he wanted us to remember him as the funny smart uncle who always reached out a helping hand to everyone.

There is not one second that goes by that I don’t think about him. I just wish that I got one more hug, one more smile, and one more laugh before he died. I just have this one question that remains in my head everyday, Why him? I now know that he isn’t suffering and that he is in a better place.

He went to heaven for a reason, because God needed someone to look over us.