Tearin' Up My Heart

Not gonna lie, this weekend was a low for me. Despite hanging with awesome friends and having a whole heck of a lot of fun, a couple of things have been tearing me apart this week/weekend.

My grandma is in a nursing home/hospital. There's no easy way to put this, but she is dying. As sad as it is, it's not unexpected. My grandma has been fighting colon cancer for over a year. She survived a stroke that paralyzed half her body that was probably alcohol and tobacco related. She chose not to go through chemotherapy and now the days and hours she has are numbered. I went to visit her on Wednesday in the hospital before they moved her, and while she looked weak and weary, she was able to joke around and laugh for the short time I was there. I could tell that she was happy to see me and my sister, and I was glad I could share that happy moment with her. The next day we were at the nursing home and she was suffering. She was still able to talk, and the entire family came by to see her. All my aunts were there, and it was probably the first time in years...years...that my dad and ALL of his sisters had been in the same room together at the same time. Before my aunts showed up, my dad and I were able to joke around with my grandma and have a good time and see her smile. When my aunts showed up, the entire mood of the room changed in one swift swoosh. Everything became somber and filled with emotion in contrast to the life we were celebrating previously. Everyone deals with death differently, but I don't know how to feel/what to do. I had to leave the room. It was just too much emotion for me.

My grandma and I may not have had the closest relationship, and I may not have heard the best things about her, but whenever she saw me, she treated me with love, kindness, respect, and she did nothing but uplift me. This week I have learned that if there's one thing that I can do for my family, it is to try to uplift them the same way my grandma uplifted me. I want to be there for them, be strong for them, and show them the same love, respect, kindness, and gratitude my grandma showed me (it's funny how sometimes you can match words to your feelings for the first time while writing on a blog). I will be there for them.

Speaking of being there for someone, Friday night was one of the most overwhelming (and not in a good way) experiences in my life. I was invited to go clubbing in LA with my gorgeous friend (who I won't name in this blog) and her two friends. We had a great time, and I sure felt pimpin' dancing in the club with three fine ladies. On the way home we were pulled over, and my friend was taken to jail on a DUI charge. I don't plan on going into details about it through this blog, but it's something that I really need to write down for when I look back through my blogs and remember this night:

I grew up a lot Friday night. My friend was arrested, and the cops abandoned us to fend for ourselves in East LA. We didn't know what to do, or where to go, nor where they were taking my friend to be held. I began calling people to find out what we could do, how we could get her out. Thank God, Scuba came down and picked us up, but we didn't stop there. For the rest of the night her friend and I did everything we could possibly think of to get her out of jail so she wouldn't have to spend the night there. As the night wore on and our options began to shrink, we realized that we needed to tell her parents. We didn't know if this is what she wanted, and we didn't know if this would help, but we knew that it was the right thing to do. As we stepped up onto her doorstep to ring the bell, I was prepared to give everything to make sure that my friend would be safe and her parents would know that she was okay, even if that meant being hated by both her and her parents. We told them everything that happened in what was probably the most awkward half-hour of my entire life, and then we left. Still worried for our friend and not knowing what to do, we continued to think up ideas and eventually left to our homes to get some rest at 7 in the morning. The cops had still not given her her phone call. I slept for four hours (I couldn't sleep any longer knowing my friend was in a cell at that moment), woke up, and began calling the police stations again. I found out she was still there, and they didn't plan on releasing her anytime soon. This pissed me off. How could they hold someone for this long and not even post bail, give her a phone call, or let her ask for legal counsel? Her friend and I began researching everything and calling everyone we knew to find out how we could speed up the process/get her out/and find out if her rights were being violated.

She was released around 4 p.m. never once being able to make a phone call to let her parents know she was okay. I can't imagine what she had to go through, but I know I would have given anything then, and I still would, to never let this happen to her. This weekend has been a strain on my heart to see my friend go through shit like this along with my grandma going through hers, and at points it's been overwhelming, but to be an adult is to be strong and to be strong is to be there for the people around you. I'm an adult.

If only I had a Delorean with a Flux Capacitor, I could make this all go away, but I don't. The best I can do now is to be there for her, be there for my family, and pray. Keep everyone in your prayers. I will be there for her.

Be careful, be there for each other, and, most importantly, love because sometimes that's all we can do. I will be there for you.