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Grandmother's Cancer - Essay

Grandmother's Cancer

They covered the precious mahogany coffin with a brown amalgam of rocks, decomposed organisms, and weeds. It was my turn to take the shovel, but I felt too ashamed to dutifully send her off when I had not properly said goodbye. I refused to throw dirt on her. I refused to let go of my grandmother, to accept a death I had not seen coming, to believe that an illness could not only interrupt, but steal a beloved life.

When my parents finally revealed to me that my grandmother had been battling liver cancer, I was twelve and I was angry--mostly with myself. They had wanted to protect me--only six years old at the time--from the complex and morose concept of death. However, when the end ...

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myself that I would memorize every fact and absorb every detail in textbooks and online medical journals. And as I began to consider my future, I realized that what I learned in school would allow me to silence that which had silenced my grandmother. However, I was focused not with learning itself, but with good grades and high test scores. I started to believe that academic perfection would be the only way to redeem myself in her eyes--to make up for what I had not done as a granddaughter.

However, a simple walk on a hiking trail behind my house made me open my own eyes to the truth. Over the years, everything--even honoring my grandmother--had become second to school and grades. As my shoes humbly tapped against the Earth, the towering trees blackened by the forest fire a few years ago, the faintly colorful pebbles embedded in the sidewalk, and the wispy white clouds hanging in the sky reminded me of my small though nonetheless significant part in a larger whole that is ...

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Grandmother's Cancer. (2021, January 5). Retrieved January 11, 2026, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Grandmothers-Cancer/107584

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"Grandmother's Cancer." Essayworld.com. January 5, 2021. Accessed January 11, 2026. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Grandmothers-Cancer/107584.

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 1/5/2021 10:06:54 AM
Submitted By: lalablank
Category: Personal Writing
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 646
Pages: 3

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