End of Summer of 2010 Final draft

the final draft of the narrative essay I had to write of Comp 1

When we first left for Chicago, I thought this would just be another mission trip. I never imagined that Grandpa Taylor would die a few days later. Grandpa’s death just seemed to be the beginning of seeming endless number bad events. Looking back, I realize that I would not be the person I am today if everything had gone like I wanted it to, but now I am getting ahead of myself. This story starts when I got a call from my mom while at 6 Flags.

My brother William and I were walking around 6 Flags trying to figure out what we were going to do until they closed when my phone buzzed. I looked at it and saw that my mom was calling.

 “Hi Mom! Why are you calling?”

“Keely there is something that I have to tell you. Grandpa Taylor died earlier today.” The sentence “Grandpa Taylor died earlier today” completely shocked me. I mean I know we went to visit him the day before leaving in case he died, but I never thought he would. He had been there for me my whole life and now he was gone. In the end stomach cancer took him from us.

Robert William Taylor’s ashes were buried on Tuesday, August 3, 2010 at Lakeside Cemetery with full military honors. The only thing I really remember about that day was The Sota Grass Band, my grandpa’s favorite bluegrass band, performing a few songs, my Aunt Sue, along with her friends Ray and Jean Chitwood, performing Amazing Grace, and the bald eagle flying over the cemetery as the urn was buried.

The next few days were a blur until my dad went back to work and found out that his department was transferring to Slater, IA. Thankfully we had already planned a week-long trip to look at houses in Ames, Boone, Ogden, Nevada, Slater, Madrid, Perry, and Granger. After looking for almost a week we finally decided on two houses, one in Boone and one in Ogden. We went and visited Boone’s high school during their new student orientation, where I first started to be more ok with the idea of moving right before my senior year of high school, and learned school started next Thursday, August 19, 2010. After deciding on the house in Boone, we went to get signed up for classes before leaving the next day.

During the first month at my new school I made many new people and friends. One of them was Kayla Ludwick. We meet in Individualize Literature, where I found someone my age who liked to read as much as me. Thanks to Kayla the move to a new town and school was made so much easier. She not only invited me to L.I.F.T., a youth group for Open Bible Church in Boone, and introduced me to all her friends, but also showed me the town on our walks when we didn’t have Sociology. During our walks I learned that she had lost her father when she was in 7^th grade and that her mother could not take care of her and her sister and brother, so they live with their grandparents. One conversation I remember the most is when she told me, “Even after all these years there are still times when his death hits me hard.” We were sitting in the library, like we did during all our free time together unless we were walking around Boone. The library was like another home that we shared. Kayla was sitting on her side of the table and for a reason I don’t know we started talking about our families, where we grew up, and more of what interested us. Seeing Kayla so happy after the loss of her dad made me realize that I could be happy too, that I didn’t have to be sad because I lost him. I can relate to what she told me because every time I hear the song Amazing Grace, one of my grandpa’s favorite songs that my aunt sang at his funeral, I start to cry.

When I first learned that we may, and later would, be moving, I was not happy, but after going to a totally different school and meeting new friends, I completely changed my mind. According to my dad, I met more real friends in one month in Boone than in all my 12 years at Randolph. It is thanks to all my new friends that I can remember all the good times I had fishing and camping every summer with Grandpa and Grandma, instead of just having an empty hole inside of me. I had changed so much that my dad started to call me “Alien” or “Alien Keely”. He still calls me “Alien” and says “I am still waiting for my daughter to come back” even to this day.