Learning never ends, though it speeds up during our teenage years to account for the long hours spent in the classroom and doing homework, and also for some more important lessons taught to us while doing everything else with our lives. To put it simply, we are first concerned with our social status and body image, then we are concerned with making lasting friends, and then our future and career path. During these transitions we make another more subtle connection, ever so slowly, regarding the importance of the people in our lives.

We love our parents and siblings without even deciding to. They are family and don't always get our conscious adoration because the feeling is so ingrained into us already, and they know it. Saying, "I love you," for any occasion comes and goes because the love we have for our kin is stuck in our hearts like stone. Friends made in high school or college receive our attention on a daily basis and they too understand the mutual trust and love, even when it's not vocalized. But saying, "I love you," to our grandparents, or simply showing it with a phone call, is not always in the forefront of our minds.

My grandma was one hell of a person, having raised six children, each with at least two children of their own, while also having the full effect of a long life of experiences. She saw every single country in her life multiple times and took incredible risks that only made her spirit brighter. If there was anyone I knew who managed to fill their learning capacity the highest, it was her.

I think about my grandmother's beautiful life every time I hear these words from the song, "I Lived," by One Republic: "I owned every second that this world could give, I saw so many places and things that I did. With every broken bone, I swear I lived."

She saw the world to the max, but it was the thing she saw the least that she wanted to see the most. Only when she had a few months left to live did I realize this. Only when we discovered her cancer and she entered a coma did I think about all the times I wish I had called her. We talked every month or so, yet I constantly feel as though that wasn't enough. If there was one single lesson I wish I learned earlier, it would be to share the love I know I have with the people who hear it the least, and also with those who hear it the most. "Don't take anyone in your life for granted," all our elders seem to say and turn into a cliche. "You don't appreciate what you have until it's gone." It wouldn't be called a cliche if it wasn't true.

Now I call my mom, sister, and father, every other day at least. I can't tell you this in person Grandma, but if you ever happen to read this from wherever you went, I want you to know the most important lesson I learned in my life came from you. A year ago it was made of bronze, but you turned it into the purest form of gold, just like your soul.