All of us have spent time contemplating death—perhaps our own, perhaps the death of those we love. Throughout history, scholars, poets, philosophers, and theologians have opined about death—its mystery, its elusiveness, its ineffability. We’ve heard from Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Aristotle, Edgar Allan Poe, and countless others. Today we hear from 13-year-old Ava Giardino.
Ava Giardino is a student at the Gordon School in East Providence, Rhode Island.
Where do you go when your life comes to an end? Does everything just go black? Do you come back in another life? All I know is that you only have so many years in this life. I believe you shouldn’t let the pear rot.
When my grandma died, I was too young to know that she wouldn’t be returning, too young to go to the funeral, to celebrate her life. I was four, like a new baby, too young to get hurt. I remember it clearly. I woke up in her old house, not knowing what was happening.
I knew she was sick, but didn’t know someone could be here one day, then gone the next. Looking at my family, crying, tears sprinting down their faces, not knowing what to do. Waking to what I thought was a normal day. We went down the hall of the one story house, in little Okarche, Oklahoma, knowing she was gone. “Did she evaporate?” I asked myself. “Will there be nothing when I look at the lonely bed?” I wasn’t allowed to see. Everyone left, all dressed up. I stayed there, in that lonely one story house, with only a babysitter and cousins.
Before we lost Grandma, she had lost loved ones. My grandfather died suddenly after 19 years of marriage, then my uncle at 15. Things happen unexpectedly. Their lives got plucked, like an unripe pear. My grandma went to see things that she wanted to see. My grandma never wanted her life to rot, and be worth nothing. When I was younger, I didn’t think I could grow up without grandparents on one side. My grandma made the most of what remained in life. She lived her life like she was a fresh pear, still on the tree.
When my grandma died, I started thinking, what really happens when I die, when will I die? My little four year old mind went wild, thinking of it all, but I came to one conclusion. When I die, I will see black, be nowhere with no one. It won’t be fun. I don’t want to think about that now. I am thirteen, some think I have years and years to live my life, but do I? I don’t know what will come next, or even if anything will come next. All I know is that I don’t live forever.
