It’s now Sunday, it’s been a long day. I had bought plane tickets last night for my brother and i to head home. we both needed to return to school and felt like we had said our goodbye to grandma. my mom didn’t understand and was a crying wreck. She wanted my brother to stay with her. it was a control thing more than anything. without getting into too much detail he had to sneak out. i kissed my grandmother goodbye. i felt her cold hands and placed a note i had written to her in it. i knew i would not see her again. this pained me more than i could explain. so as i left out the front door and my brother climbed out a back window and over a fence, my mom broke down crying and begged me not to go. and that was hard. but i had to get back to school, i was now telling myself this was my grandmas wishes. my brother and i met up at a Lowes hardware store down the street. we had no ride to the fresno airport from madera so i had to call a cab. this taxi was cash only so i had to go get cash back at the store by making three purchases. the cab ended up being about $100 and we got to the airport on time. we got to our terminal safely early and sat there looking out some giant windows. my brother and i sat in silence for the most part. really for most of the day we didn’t speak to each. i think this was in fear of someone mentioning grandma. we didn’t want the guilt of us fleeing back to Washington to become known to each other. the plane ride got played over in phoenix Arizona. we were there for about 3 hours. we were there until about 5:30 when or next plane took off. we sat in this terminal once again in silence. the sky outside had turned a pale blue with oranges and pinks streaking across the landscape. i don’t think i had ever seen anything like it. i started to cry. my brother saw this and he too started to cry. at some point i realized this and we shared a silent look of acknowledgement. this lasted for a about a minute as we wiped our tears and tried to appear less sad. the plane ride home wasn’t too bad the sunset as we took off was too beautiful to describe and the foggy starlit fight was haunting to say the least. absolute yugen. we landed in pdx and our father picked us up, we then got some food and started heading up north to take me back here to olympia. my father got me some groceries and dropped me off. i said goodbye to him and my brother, we once again shared a look. i told him to take care of himself. i think he will be fine, probably better than me. as they left some friends come into my suite and i told them about my past week and the long day. they seemed like they cared and offered consolation. they then retired to their respective rooms. by this time it was about midnight, and my phone had been dead for hours. i plugged it back in and was surprised to see a text from my mom. my grandma passed away at 11:20 that night, roughly around the time i got back to my dorm. peaceful and in her sleep she took her last breath. my mom said “she had returned to the stars”. i wept alone in my room for the next hour.