My Life Changing Experience Essay

I’ve never been more sad than the day that my cousin Taron died. She had battled cancer for five years, if not more, when she took her last breath. She was in a coma for the last week of her life. She was a fighter; no matter how sick the chemotherapy made her, no matter how bad it hurt, she never complained. She was never mean to anyone, she never made a rude remark against someone, and everyone loved her. She lived for the Lord, and did everything she could for him. I believe in my heart, when she took her last breath, she went straight up the stairway to heaven. I will never forget the morning she went to the doctor and found out she had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I had to go to school with my aunt, and I was in the fifth grade. Taron walked into my aunt Sherry’s room when she was getting ready and my aunt noticed that her Lymph nodes were swelled, about the size of a baseball. She was freaking out, but my cousin wasn’t really scared until my aunt got scared. I think my aunt didn’t say anything else about it until I got to school because she didn’t want to scare me or my cousin any worse, but when I got picked up early that day at school, I kind of had a feeling something was wrong. It wasn’t long after that that we learned she had been diagnosed with cancer. The day she passed away, my mom told me if she came and picked me up early that something would’ve happened. I was worrying, but after a while, I kind of eased up a little bit. At lunch, I was eating and I saw one of the office runners come into the lunch room, and my heart dropped. I knew that I was checking out, and when I got the note it was all I could do not to burst out into tears. Taron was gone, and there was nothing I could do about it. Read more:  Essays About Life Changing Experiences I never even got to say goodbye, and that’s the part that kills me. Whenever I think about her, all I can see is her laying in that casket in a pink suit, with her hair fixed, but bruises on her arms and face from where she had been in the hospital. I walked and hugged all our family that was sitting on the first row of benches in the church, and I didn’t break down until I got to her dad, and he was the last one I was going to hug. I broke down, hugged him, and cried. All he said to me was, â€Å"It’s ok. She’s in a better place now. I went back to my seat, and when the preacher was preaching I saw a single tear run down my grandpa’s face, and it’s the only time I’ve ever seen him cry. The way this changed my outlook on life was major. I’ve never been so devastated in my life. I learned that no matter who you are, bad things happen to you, and no one is invincible. Death is real, but it had never hit me so hard. I’ve learned that you should live every day like it’s your last, and have fun while you can. I learned that no matter how bad your situation is, there’s always someone who has it worse. You should always treat others like you want to be treated, because you don’t know if they’ll be there tomorrow to apologize to them. God can give, and he can take away. I learned that life isn’t just about the material things, and laughter is necessary, because that’s how I’ve got through this. Laughter, love, and my wonderful family. You shouldn’t take things for granted, because sometimes as soon as things are going good for you, it can all fall apart. Live your life while you can, because Taron did, and I’m following in her footsteps. I’m living my life one day at a time, and I’m enjoying as much of it as I possibly can.