Dear World,

     I went through a dark time. It was easy for people to not notice because I was new to the school and area. People had only known me for a year and I was already closed off when I moved. I was shy and quiet.

      In third grade, I lost someone dear to me, my grandfather. I grew up around my grandfather, learning just about everything I knew. We spent hours each week together learning different things.

     After losing my grandfather, I fell into darkness. To this day, it shocks me that such a young child spiraled down the dark hole known as depression. I would cry to myself every night wishing I could see him one more time. There were times where I would break down crying in the middle of class.

     Every single time I went back to his old house, I felt like someone had stabbed me. So many pent-up memories were in that house. Playing on that old piano with my grandfather, rushing around in darkness before the animals were awake to get ready for the fishing trip, trying not to burn myself on the old gas stove. I would always want to run out that house and never going back, remembering that I never said "Goodbye." I told him "See you soon," twenty days before he died. In those twenty days, I had a feeling that I wouldn't see him again and not once did I beg my mother to see him again.

     The morning he died, I awoke to my sister crying at three A.M. I told her to shut up not bothering to ask her what was wrong. I didn't cry once that morning, trying to believe that this was all some sick joke. My mother didn't allow me to go and see him that night or go to his funeral.

      A year after my grandfather had died, I was still stuck in darkness. My mother suggested that I go to a grief relief camp, and so I did. Those three days partly released the heavy weight on my chest, but that weight was soon dropped back down.

     A few weeks later, I was visiting with my father and told him about the camp. He told me that I should have gotten over my grandfather's death and shouldn't have talked to strangers about my problem.

     Even to this day, I'm not completely over his death. There are times that I still cry myself to sleep, and want to die. I'm afraid to get close to people because I'm scared of losing them, thantophobia. 

     This is my story about my darkest time.

~ Princess Raiyne