A lot happened the year I turned sixteen. My grandmother �retired� to a nursing home since my family didn�t have the time to care for her. Imagine the scene: being forced out of your own home by your children because they�your own flesh and blood�can�t seem to make the time to take care of you. Grandma died shortly after she moved out of the house. It seems though everything I�ve told you so far passed in a blur, the moment that sticks out in my mind the most, the one true instant that I remember being truly happy was the night my brother died.

Ironic isn�t it? Well, that isn�t the whole story. Up until this time, I was having a decently good year. My birthday had passed on Valentine�s day, same as it did every year. Only this particular year was different. When I came home, my brother was no where to be found. He was in the hospital. To make a novel into a paragraph, his fight was long and died not long after he was diagnosed. But it wasn�t the struggle he ensued, it was the night we buried him that is burn into my mind that has made me remember it as the best moment of my life.