The summer didn’t start out like I thought it would. I got home just in time to watch the rain fall, the dew clinging to each blade of grass and every leaf on the tree. I got home just in time to see the flowers start to bloom again, reaching towards the sky. I was home when the sun broke through the clouds, catching within the waves of my hair. I got home in enough time to find out that my grandma had stage three stomach cancer.

And it felt like all of those storm clouds came back. I felt like I had a personal storm cloud. I could feel the drops on my cheeks, almost like my tears.

And I struggled with the cross that wasn’t mine to bear. I fought against the cancer that wasn’t mine. I crumpled underneath the pain that I had never felt.

Then I found out that my uncle had cancer.

And I drowned in the tears of my worry.

As the summer progressed, I found myself avoiding home. I would take extra long getting home. I would sit out on the porch. I would complain of homework. I used whatever I could so I wouldn’t hear my parents talking about it. I wanted every piece of information but I didn’t want the reminders. And so I spent a lot of the first part of the summer in the dark — I was in the sunlight, but I couldn’t feel the warming rays upon my skin. I was here, but I was there, and I wasn’t happy.

But certain people were able to pull me back, certain people were able to warm me from within.

And I thought that those people understood why I was acting differently. Why I got frustrated easily, why I was mad over a ticket. I thought that person — my person, my love — would understand why I went out onto the porch by myself, sitting with my arms around my knees as I wept bitterly. And he did understand. He understood that, on my 19th birthday, I wanted someone to take me into their arms and tell me that everything would be okay. He knew that I wanted someone to take the pain away, to pry my fears from my clenched fists. And just let it go.

And as we sat there on the steps, his hair aglow from my green porch light, I felt myself letting go. I was letting go of it all — work, school, cancer — it all seemed far away. What was here and now was him sitting there and looking at me with that intense look of his, like he could read my thoughts and feel my emotions crashing over him.

I told him then (prepared to say that I was joking, the nickname was stupid) that I thought he was Adonis. I thought he would laugh in my face, roll his eyes jokingly. But instead, he leaned in and kissed me. His lips crashed onto mine and it was like a slap fully to the face — it so woke my senses that my lips were tingling as he pulled away. And as I sat there, watching him like he was a miracle; how could someone with those eyelashes, those lips, those eyes, exist when he told me that he thought of me as an angel? And then he leaned in to kiss me in his special way again, and I swear I’ve never felt that way before. Never felt myself jolt awake— alive — like that.

Then he left, and I saw him off. I cried within my shower, big fat tears crawling down the drain.

Then my uncle was better. He was resting at home, after his surgery. And I thought that maybe, just maybe, the summer was going to change.

And I started swimming with my grandma every chance I got. I would drive with her, and we’d talk about a number of things. I’d talk about my friends, my school, my thoughts. We had a good balance going; at times, she’d be mute as she listened to me attentively, other times, I’d be the one listening, a chin in my hand.

I loved our afternoons together. I loved seeing her smile and laugh, her eyes alive with mirth. I wanted her to be that way forever - and I wasn’t minding her bald head anymore. It was normal. It was my grandma. I loved her bald head as much as I loved her sense of humor, the crinkles near her eyes, the wrinkles and veins of her hands. She was alive. I was, too.

And as the end of summer neared — the light shifting as it hit me on the porch. It wasn’t so hot anymore. School was just a few weeks away. I felt myself wishing I had done more with the summer, wishing I had gone to the beach, traveled somewhere.

As I sat with my grandma, talking for hours, I realized I did more than enough with my summer. She wiped her tears away as she told me that if she had been well, she wouldn’t have been home. And so she thought her cancer was a blessing in disguise because she got to see me. She told me she so enjoyed getting to spend time with me.

And as the tears pricked at my eyes — I knew I would never see a better summer. I knew I would never again hear about grandma looking at wigs. I knew I would no longer plead with God to save her.

I realized I had lived the best summer of my life, based on the conversations I had held on couches with the people I loved the most. The conversations with grandma as she held my hand tightly in her own, turning my hand this way and that to study it better. Or the conversations I had with my grandpa as he sat watching a movie, then would suddenly turn to me and ask me, “Why are you so pretty?” I can still feel his wiry mustache as he went to give me a kiss on the cheek. I could clearly remember the conversation I had with my person on his couch, glasses of wine in our hands. I can remember the way that he looked at me. The way it felt laughing. I thought I would never be happier.

But I am.

It’s a happiness that came to me through tears, with scars that are still healing. It’s a happiness that had to take everything away from me first.

But it’s happiness nonetheless, even if there is some sorrow hidden within it.