It was a partly cloudy, chilly, regular March morning on March 13, 2009. Kayla and I were 8, and Miranda was 9 years old. My sisters and I were planning on going shopping with my older sister, because she lived in Ionia and we never get to see her. We were going to spend all day shopping as sister bonding, but that wasn’t the only thing planned to happen on that day. Which would change my family, and my perspective of spending as much time with family as you can. My sisters and I woke up and started getting ready by getting in the showers and doing our normal morning routine. My sister got there and we talked, then ended up leaving for the Meridian Mall for a fun day, or so we thought.

My dad was at work from 6 in the morning to 2:30 in the afternoon. He works at the General Motors Grand River plant, so does my mom, sister, and both of my uncle Jeff's. Well it takes my dad between 45 minutes to an hour to get home from work. My mom was at my grandma and grandpa’s house. So my older sister, Ashley’s, job was to babysit us for the day. Our plan was to only go shopping during the morning and coming hometo hang out for the afternoon. Only until my parents come home so we could have dinner with Ashley.

We all piled into Ashley’s car and headed off to the mall. If I remember correct, Kayla and I were in the back seats. While Ashley was driving of course, and Miranda was in the passenger seat. She still has the same car as back then which is a navy blue Malibu. Once we got there we went to the stores like Aeropostale, Vanity, Buckle, Hollister, and my favorite store American Eagle. After spending some time in the mall we decided to get something to eat, and head home to wait for mom and dad. As well hang out and watch some television together. On our way back we were hyper, especially Miranda. We got something to eat together, which I believe was fast food. As we started heading home we turned up the radio really loud and was pretty much screaming, as an attempt to sing. Then for more fun, Ashley gave us her Samsung Galaxy phone. We then started taking videos on her phone with all of us talking, singing, and messing around.

When we got home we went into the living room and played the board game Clue. The way you play it is that you pick your player. When you roll the dice, it tells you how many spaces you can move. There are rooms all around the board. If you go into a room you have to make an accusation on who killed Mr. Boddy, and there is 6 players which are the suspects. When you go into a room you have to say who killed him, with what weapon, and that room that you are in. Every player has cards with either a room, person, or weapon. Those mean that those were not used to commit the murder. After the accusation, another player can show you one of their cards that is of the person, weapon, or room. At the end, on your paper you should have one person, one weapon, and one room that has not been proved wrong. When you do you try to beat the other players to the pool and make the accusation, and open up the envelope and check the cards. If you are wrong, you can’t tell the other players so they can guess at the pool. As we play this game together we ate a bunch of oreos and milk. When everyone didn’t want to play anymore we cleaned up, and started to watch tv. It was in the afternoon close to the evening. We were all hyper, and all joking around. After a while we started to wonder when our parents were going to be home from our grandma and grandpa Hudson’s house. My dad went to meet up with my mom after work there. It was getting late so we figured that my mom and dad were going to stay there and talk for a while. That didn’t bother us, because we were having fun with my Ashley. Except we were wrong.

A little while after we were in the living room joking and watching tv. When we saw my parents get home we were all happy, that meant we could have dinner with Ashley now. When they walked in they looked really sad and upset. They walked past us and said to stay there, because they had something to tell us. So we all thought that they had a surprise for us so Miranda was rolling around on the floor all excited. As they came out of their room it looked like they were going to cry. They sat on the couch and told us to sit with them, because it wasn’t good news at all. They told us that there had been an accident with my Uncle Jeff, and he was dead. The whole room went quiet and every single person in the room started to cry.

I asked my parents, “What happened to him?”

My dad replied, “He was chopping down trees across with a friend in the swamp area across the road from your grandma and grandpa Hudson’s house. The tree he was chopping started to fall the other way, but bounced back and hit him.”Apparently he was thrown across the area and killed on impact. My dad explained that he drove there after work and apparently, and there were firefighters, cops, and ambulances everywhere. He said that he jumped out of his car to see what was going on, and my other uncle Jeff that was a volunteer firefighter stopped my dad, and had to explain to him what had happened and who was the victim. I have never ever seen my dad that sad about something. I even saw him cry which is very rare. The emotions ran extremely high after we were told this news. It was March and we haven’t seen him since Christmas. His funeral was next week and all my sisters and I did was sit on the couch in front of him and cried the whole funeral. When they went to bury his casket it was covered in an American flag and all the firefighters were gathered around helping carry his casket to his burial spot. Which his kids chose under a very nice tree, because even though he was killed by a tree, he still loved the beauty of nature.

It has been 7 years since he passed and still talking and thinking about him makes us cry. For a few years after the accident we would visit his grave many, many times. We would get together as a family and visit him on his birthday. I remember the family going to his grave, and we let go of balloons to wish him a happy birthday. We would also go out there on the anniversary but not as a family. My parents, sisters, and I would all go out and stand around his grave and have a moment of silence. None of us would talk the whole time out there. Sometimes my sisters and I would start crying, because it made us realize that we would never see him again. My grandma and grandpa Crawford would go out there almost every weekend and get new flowers, help clean up around there, and just take care of his grave. We haven’t been there maybe this whole year, because of how busy we have gotten over the years. It’s also sad that his son got married, and so did his daughter who had her first kid a few years ago. The number 13 is the Crawford family is a “cursed” number, because of this horrible event. Every time I think of my uncle Jeff I remember that he is in a better place. My uncle, Jeff, was a volunteer firefighter too. So we always say whenever someone asks if we are still upset, we just say that Heaven was always needing a hero. My favorite saying that my grandma Crawford got on a slab of stone says, “No farewell words were spoken, no time to say goodbye, you were gone before we knew it, and only God knows why. It's not the same without him, but it definitely taught me to not take family or life for granted, because you never know when someone close to you will be taken away from you.