It felt like a normal day in the year 2007. Sunny, with a slight chance of clouds in the middle of Philadelphia. I was sitting in a church, hearing the priest say a few prayers and my family were closing their eyes. My grandmother, the mother of my own mother; finally died a peaceful death from cancer. It was a surreal moment for me, as for almost eightteen years of my life she was always there.

When I used to live in Philly, it seemed like everyday I would visit my grandparents. Some of the better memories from my life are from spending time with them. My grandmother was the most beloved figure in our family. I love all of my family members, but for some reason my grandmother stuck out the most. She was a kind and caring woman, never judging and always wanted to listen to what was on our minds. What unsettled me the most about her funeral was, I never cried. It was a devastating couple of months to see her go from healthy relative to lying in a casket. My mother and sister to this day cry from time to time thinking about her. But no matter what, I never cried. Why am I not crying at the one person I loved the most in my family?

Then about a couple of years ago it struck me. During the early years of my life, my grandmother had the best children's book ever. The Monster at the End of this Book, a tale of Sesame Street's Grover, trying to stop the reader from seeing the monster at the end of this book. Looking back at it now, it's a very surreal book. Grover actually talking to the reader and trying to force us from getting to the end. When I read it, I actually chuckle cause a lot cause this book works on so many levels.

But whenever I went to my grandmother's house during the early years, she always read this to me. She loved it just as much as me or my sister; as Grover is her most favorite character. Whenever she read it to me, she had a silly voice for Grover, trying to sound exactly like him. My grandmother would try and do sound effects to whatever Grover was doing. A section where Grover uses a wall of bricks to block us; she always pretended that the page weighed a ton. Struggling to lift the page, we always cheered and laughed when we accidentally toppled the bricks on Grover. By the time we got to the end of the book, we were all smiles when we learn Grover was the monster of the book.

I'm twenty years old now, and it's been two years since she has died. Some of the members of our family took some heirlooms to remember her. Me and my sister choose to take this book. I read it alone one day after gettng it, and I cried. All the tears I held back came pouring in. All the memories of her and how I will never see her again made me weep. But now when I read it I smile, cause the memories I have of her are not depressing. They were some of the best moments of my life, and to this day I still cry when I read this. Tears of happiness and tears of memory; this book will always make me remember my grandmother the rest of my life.

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