Your Words Become Mine

"In the pitch-black night, there was nothing to look at but the road ahead, lit by the car's headlights." We were driving home from a visit with my grandmother. The night was lit only with the reflective road signs and the occasional gas station. The reflection in the window made me look like a ghost. I had just been completely crushed in a game of eights and I was not happy about it. Directly after getting in the car I had begun to sob unabashedly. It felt like everything was terrible. Like nothing would be okay again. Cut to twenty-five minutes later and I was peacefully reading a book like nothing had ever happened. I think when someone you care about dies it’s a little bit like losing a game of eights. People never play fairly. Sometimes you’re stuck with a hand you never, ever wanted while someone else’s cards are all great. The thing about eights is that if you lose, even if you lose horribly, is that you can always play again. In life if your hand sucks and the game ends badly you can’t exactly have a do-over. There’s no way to play again and do better the next time. Luck is a major factor in both eights and life, but what you do with it can change the game. My grandmother couldn’t change the ending to her story, she could only decide so much about the way her life would end. She chose where she died and who was with her, but she couldn’t change when she left. She didn’t have a say in that. In the car, on the way home I knew I wasn’t going to get a whole lot more time with her. I knew that I couldn’t do anything to change the way the game would end. But I did get to chose what I would do with the time left. I think knowing that there’s not much time left is hard to face when you’re 10. So maybe the tears weren’t just for the lost game I had just played, maybe they were for the one that hadn’t ended yet.