Never Give Up

The experience that most changed my life was the death of my grandmother. Let me start from the beginning. My name is Heidi Bertrand, my mom died when I was 4 years old and my dad was an alcoholic and drug addict so instead of going to the state of Massachusetts my fathers mother viola took custody of my brother Stephen and I .

My grandmother taught me right from wrong and made sure that my brother and I were taken care of. I never saw my father that much after my mother died. He took her death very hard. The year I turned 13 my father reemerged back into my life. My grandmother was very sick she had a heart condition and was in and out of the hospital my Aunt Judy would come and stay with my brother and I and bring us to see Grammy in the hospital. Finally, in December Grammy came home from the hospital.

January 17, 1994, it was the day before aunt Judy's baby shower, I was 14 years old then. I remember the events of the day and night before Grammy died. She was sitting in her recliner crocheting a baby blanket for my aunt Judy's unborn baby and getting things ready for the baby shower I was helping by making shower favors and center pieces and being a teenager my Grammy and I sometimes didn't see eye to eye. We had gotten into an argument about my schoolwork and later we had made up. I went to bed around 10 pm and around midnight I had a strange dream about Grammy and I woke up and went to check on her. When I walked into her bedroom she was laying on the floor, I ran over to her and checked for a pulse and to see if she was breathing. She was not breathing and I could not feel a pulse she was cold to the touch. Oh my god I thought I need help as I was Turing the oxygen up full blast panicking I ran to the telephone and dialed my aunt Judy she called my other aunts and uncles and my dad and I called 911. I went upstairs and woke up my brother before the ambulance got there and we went and said good-bye to Grammy. I could not believe this was happening. I kept hoping it was a nightmare that I would wake up from. I felt so lost and sad. It felt like the only person who ever cared about me was gone. It hurt so

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