Becoming a Rock

BY MALIHA LODI, GRADE 11

Her eyes widened. The phone fell from her hands.

It landed onto the hardwood flooring with a bang.

Then, the tears started to fall. Sounds of anguish and sorrow echoed all throughout the house. She collapsed onto the ground with her hands covering her face. The heartache she felt in that moment was almost indescribable. Imagine 10 red, burning hot pokers being impaled into your chest.

Then multiply that pain by a hundred.

That was just a fraction of her heartache.

What had started as just a normal Tuesday afternoon for my mother had quickly become one of the absolute worst days of her life. The call she had received was from my grandmother, telling her to immediately book a flight and come back home.

It was my grandfather.

He had been hospitalized.

It had only been recently that my grandfather had fallen ill. His headaches were the things that started it all, but they were just the beginning. His condition only got worse due to him keeping them to himself. He thought that the headaches were only a temporary problem, thus he kept them a secret.

Due to his stubbornness, my grandfather’s “little” headaches slowly transformed into dizzy spells. He could hardly stand up at times without having the whole world spin around him.

The people around him had started to take notice. They tried to get him to go to the doctor, but he declined one after the other.

The day that my mother received the call was the day my grandfather’s condition took a turn for the worse. He was coming home from work, as he routinely did every evening. He took one step into the house and collapsed right in the front door. My grandmother tried to get him conscious, but her attempts failed. She quickly called my cousin, who lived next door, and they both rushed my grandfather to the hospital.

It was after multiple scans and tests that the doctors had finally found the issue. There was fluid building up in my grandfather’s brain alongside another large complication that I, to this day, do not understand. Due to those problems, brain surgery was required to save his life.

I rushed to my mother’s side when she heard the news. I sat on the ground next to her, and let her fall into my arms. I hugged her. I listened to her. I consoled her. I gave her a shoulder to cry on, just like she had given me countless times before.

I have grown up looking up at my parents as two rocks that will always be there for me, but in that instance, I realized there were going to be times when I needed to be there for them. When I need to become that rock in their lives.

And with that thought, I took one look at my mother and I stood up.

I had become her rock.