I believe.

I believe the hardest things in life can only make you stronger. The type of things that can break your heart in one thought. The type of things that live inside your head for all eternity. They type of things that hide in shallow wounds that you hope you will never have to talk about. The types of things that change your life.
Two years ago, my uncle was driving home from a meeting, when he suddenly fell asleep at the wheel of his car. No one was hurt, minor damage was done, but that day changed the lives of many. He was taken to the hospital, where he had been questioned numerous times by the police if he had been drinking, his answer was no every time, and it as the truth, however no one knew exactly what went wrong.
We went to visit him the next day, after my brother and I got out of school. To be honest he looked great, he was smiling and cracking jokes. It was always typical of my uncle to make anything into a joke; I personally think it was a way to cover his fear. We stayed for few hours with him, for comfort. I jokingly told him he should not give me such a huge scare three days before my seventeenth birthday. He apologized and told me everything would be just fine, but he had no idea really of what was about to happen.
Two days later we went to visit him again, this time a doctor was there running tests on him. He came to give his some results while my aunt was there, and so we all stepped out of the room. A good twenty minutes had gone by before the doctor came out, and allowed us back in. The mood of the room had taken a complete 360. My aunt told us that the CAT scan showed a small tumor on my uncle’s brain, and that it was probably only going to get larger. My heart sank straight into the bottom of my stomach. She told us they were going to have to operate to remove the cancerous tumor however it is not guaranteed they would be able to get it all.
In the mean time, my uncle became almost a new person. He had always been a very adventurous person, he loved scuba diving, and skiing, he was a very large part of his community. He coached little league football, which he took pride in. He re- instated a fundraising football event that many people appreciated. However, his main prides in life were his two children, who he raised alone since they were two and four. My uncle loved those two. He spent every minute he could with them. I know from being there with them, that they absolutely adored him as well.
Over the next several months my uncle became weaker. We found out that the cancer had been casued by cell phone waves, and pesticides on a possible fruit he'd eaten. He was given chemo therapy few times a week, and soon it came time for another operation. This was much worse operation then the first. This one took hours so it seemed, we sat in a small waiting room awaiting the doctor’s arrival. When the surgery was finally over, my uncle’s wife, and two kids, my two uncles, and the five member of my family gathered around his bed. He had a hard time opening his eyes, but we assured him we were all there. It was a very hard time for all of us, because even though no one said we all knew that my uncle as terminal.
Time went by and it seemed my uncle was only falling faster. It was hard for everyone to think about. The last time I had ever seen him, or talked to him was at a family get together at my house. I went over and sat next to him on the couch, he could no longer see out of the corners of his eyes so I positioned myself so he could see me. He asked me about school, and work. The last thing my uncle ever said to me was “you’re a good kid, and you make a lot of other people very happy.” That meant a lot to me.
It was a Sunday morning in November, when my dad returned from my uncles. His face was unusually calm, but also sad. He told us that my uncle had passed, and he went very peacefully. Sadness and despair was the main theme for the next few months. His funeral was beautiful, and most memorable. My aunts, uncles and cousins flew in from all over. We all loved our uncle very much, and appreciated having him in our lives.
Losing a family member is something that no one ever wants to go through, it is a life changing event. However, in the end it made me feel better knowing my uncle was now in a place where he did not have to be in anymore pain. I’ll always know he looks down on all of us, and knows we miss him. It’s never easy to lose someone you love, but the hardest things in life, can only make you stronger.