How my grandmother passing led me to help 300 people in 3 and a half months…

Original published on: November 7th, 2018

Today I am 30 lol. I had to let that sink in a bit. No neuroscience today…Ok maybe just a little. Usually, on your 30th birthday, you sit back and relax and maybe catch up with what happened during the year or maybe reach out to some people you haven’t talk to in a while. Most of the time a lot of people you haven't spoken to reach out to you as well. Today I want to do what I have been doing since I was 9 and that is writing. I want to tell you a story about how my grandmother that passed at the end of 2016, and how it led me to help more people in a short amount of time than I ever imagined!

2 months in my 300 people

Ever since I was younger my moms side of the family has been really huge for me because I have been around them for ever!!! My other ma(My fathers mother) passed when I was super young and I didn’t really have a relationship with her. I feel this is fine because a lot of people have this. So having a good relationship with my mothers mother was important. I remember going to her house in south jersey and finding anything I ever wanted. I could smell the paint on the old wooden walls. I could hear the creeks in the walk way and smell the peppermints that would always be in the middle of her desk that I was just eye level to see. My grandmothers house was amazing! Our family called it the free radio shack, Costco, & Walmart. It was everything you ever needed from umbrellas, to belts lol it was an amazing place.

Over the years of watching her grow older. We would go down for Christmas or thanksgiving and all cram up in her house and sit around the table and eat and then before we would leave I would have to run and grab mints! or something I couldn’t leave without bringing something back. The truth about our family was we were a family and families always go through trials and tribulations. I have learned through my years of neuroscience that once you spend that much time with ANYONE. Things have to occur. It is nature, and it is apart of evolution!! My grandmother became ill with dementia and she wasn’t the same grandmother I had before. It wasn’t her fault. She couldn’t control what was happening to her and there were times where I would wonder about the old house, the peppermints, & family gatherings. I then quickly came to an conclusion. We all live in an illusion. Our senses, and way to conceptualize this world can be taken from us at anytime so you must use what has been given to you as if the faucet can’t turn off! After she passed I bled… I cried in my car on my way to my apartment while the rain hit my window seal and my younger sister called me and we cried together and I haven’t cried in over two decades! We knew this was coming and we couldn’t do anything about it. One of the best text messages that I got was from an old friend that I went to middle/highschool with and I quote him by saying “You didn’t lose anyone, you simply gained another angel to watch over you”