15 and Forever Changed

My first cat passed when I was eight,

It didn’t phase me much then, until it was people.

Cancer struck my favorite Uncle, the one I could never hate,

So there we were on Sunday morning praying in the steeple.

The suddenness of the cancer was like a knife in my chest

Making it harder to focus on the volleyball game at hand

There was no way with this news on my mind that I could still do my best,

I didn’t tell anyone because I thought no one could understand.

I was so scared for months on end that my Uncle might die,

There was no doubt that he was scared too.

Some days I’d lock myself in my room and all I could do was cry,

I was okay when my cat died, but please Uncle it can’t be you.

In the end, he bravely won the long battle of cancer

And all my worrying I could put aside now.

He embodied the strength of a true black panther,

And at the altar I still do bow.

Before the scare of death, everything seemed simple

Just like how it was when I was a kid and little.

But as we grow, all that is left of that is a twinkle,

And things are no longer quite as they were, simple. 

I was 15 when I almost lost my Uncle to cancer,

And although I’ve faced changes before, that was the biggest one.

It made me realize, as I grow I won’t always have the answers,

I was a child once, but because of death’s scare, that is done.