my grandmother's death essay

The Death of My Grandmother and Lessons Learnt Essay

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Introduction

For many people, the death of their grandparents means the loss of a very close relative, who was given an important role in their lives. After the death of a grandmother, a person can experience many different emotions. The loss of a dear person is frightening and unsettling. Often the loss of a grandmother is the first loss in life, which only complicates the feelings experienced. Death is a natural part of life that we have to deal with sooner or later. The loss of my grandmother was the biggest tragedy that has happened to me. The main reason is the fact that she was the one who raised me to become who I am. She was closer to me than my parents because they were mostly busy at their jobs. My grandmother always accompanied me throughout my childhood.

Nonetheless, the given obstacle was a mere setback for my future success. At first, I was inclined to be pessimistic and depressed due to the fact that I did not see myself enjoying life anymore. As time passed, I began to realize that I am the only one who can and will carry on her legacy and memory because she raised me by pouring her soul into me. In addition, I started to appreciate life more because I faced the concept of death early on.

I learned many valuable things after my grandmother passed away. The best way to feel better after the death of a loved one is to indulge in pleasant memories. I tried to remember the moments when we laughed together, had fun, or other pleasant situations that we experienced with my grandmother. Also, over time, I could revise our box or album of memory, so as not to forget about all the moments experienced. I realized that if you focus on helping others, it will be easier for you to survive the loss and move on. It is also critical to support the parents and brothers during difficult moments. Some of your parents have lost their mother, and this is a terrible obstacle. I learned to recall that I love my loved ones and try to take care of them even in small endeavors, such as offering to make tea or washing the dishes. It is important to experience the joy that my grandmother lives in my memory.

Furthermore, I learned that there are several stages that each person experiencing loss goes through shock, anger, despair, and acceptance. As a rule, these stages take a year, and it is no accident that in the old traditions, the mourning for the deceased lasted as long. These experiences are individual and depend on the degree of closeness with the deceased person, on the circumstances in which he passed away. At each stage, there may be experiences that seem abnormal to people. For example, they hear the voice of a deceased person or feel his presence. They may remember the departed, dream about him, may even be angry with the deceased, or, conversely, not experience any emotion. These conditions are natural and are due to the functioning of the brain. However, it is important to know that pathological reactions to stress can occur at each stage.

In conclusion, I firmly believe that the loss of my grandmother was a major challenge that I faced in my entire life. Although it dealt irreparable damage, I am convinced that it made me much stronger as a human being both emotionally and mentally. I acquired a certain degree of peace and calmness during stressful periods because none of them can be as painful as the loss of my grandmother. In addition, I became more aware of the concept of death, which forced me to fully appreciate my time and life.

• Grandparents as Parental Figures in Modern Families
• Mourning Rituals in Five Major World Religions
• Death & Mourning Rituals in China
• Death and Dying From Children's Viewpoint
• Literacy Development in Personal Experience
• Self-Perception as a Student: Powerful or Powerless?
• Grief and Loss: Personal Experience
• Successful and Unsuccessful Aging: My Grandmother' Story
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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What My Grandmother Knew About Dying

There are essentially two kinds of physicians: those who want to fix things and those who want to help people deal with things that can’t be fixed. I became a geriatrician and palliative-care doctor because I like being with people when the hard stuff goes down. I like organizing a plan, untangling the knot of someone’s suffering even just a bit. I like having something to offer.

What I understood after a few years of taking care of the very sick and dying is that most people can’t say what they want or what they care about when they’re nearing the end: they’re overwhelmed, or in pain, or delirious. If you’re going to be useful to someone in that moment, it’s best if you’ve talked beforehand about what might happen. I learned to gently engage people in picturing their own decline and near-demise, and to ask what would be most important to them in those moments. Would they want to die at home, receive CPR, have a feeding tube? Would they prefer to be with certain people, to be blessed with certain prayers, to listen to a specific song?

I’ve been with families for some very nice deaths, planned to perfection like weddings. One older woman I adored, whom I’ll call Ellen, died at home, surrounded by roses, dressed in a fur coat—ideal. I felt good about how clear and firm I had been in articulating the reality of Ellen’s prognosis, and proud of the things that her daughters and I arranged to make her final weeks meaningful and comfortable: manicures, favorite movies, photo albums, and opioids. Ellen got it all because she didn’t shrink from existential distress. She died having told all her grandchildren that she loved them, in letters that she took the time to write and leave in envelopes in her desk.

In my family, it’s different. No one has shared a vision for the end of their lives, or written a living will. I’ve failed entirely to get conversations about these things going—partly for the same reasons that surgeons don’t operate on their loved ones, but largely because, in my family, there is a staunch refusal to acknowledge the mortal coil. My close relatives barely acknowledge having bodies. When felled by illness in various ways, they’re mystified but incurious, irritated but not despairing, and in utter disbelief that things can really go south.

My grandmother, Harriet, became engaged to my grandfather, Lou, after they’d dated for two weeks. Whenever anyone asked how she knew, she would say, “He was a hunk.” Lou was frequently ill and died at fifty-seven. I didn’t know Harriet then and can’t picture her grief, but she never dated anyone after him. She would speak of him with a very specific tenderness that conveyed, every time, that he was the love of her life.

She and Lou raised three kids in Toronto from the fifties to the seventies. When her kids were in their teens, she became obsessed with West Highland terriers, jaunty little white dogs. She had them first as pets, then became a breeder, and then got on the dog-show circuit, as a contender and a judge. When I was very little, she had a kennel in her basement, with puppies barking in pens. I could tug ropes on a pulley system to open the doors of the enclosures and let the terriers run free behind her house.

When she was in her mid-sixties, Harriet said enough with the dogs and decided to pursue acting. This wasn’t a hobby for her; it was a vocation, a dream she’d harbored since high school. She got an agent and started going to auditions. She was in several commercials and plays, and she has a reel on YouTube. Was she good? I honestly have no idea. Onstage, she always seemed so much like herself to me: robust, dramatic, annoying, self-involved, charismatic, loving. She took her jobs seriously and fretted when they dried up. She wanted to get cast enough times to qualify for a Canadian Actors’ Guild membership, and, eventually, she did.

About a decade ago, when she was eighty-four, Harriet was hospitalized for an elective procedure and suffered a string of serious complications. I flew home to see her in the intensive-care unit, where she was sitting with a non-invasive ventilation mask covering her face and forcing oxygen into her body. Many older patients in this situation become delirious, or at least anxious and scared. Not my grandmother. As I leaned in to take her hand, she pulled the mask away from her face with surprising strength and said, “Can you believe I’m in here? I was up for a part in ‘Dumb and Dumber 2.’ ”

That hospitalization lasted several weeks. Then Harriet recovered. She kept living alone. She seemed to be evading death by simply refusing to acknowledge its possibility. When I would visit, she would roll her eyes and say things like “Getting old is no fun, kiddo!” She would ask for my professional input as a physician into her various ailments, but then beam throughout my replies and listen to none of it. Her primary-care physician was old, too, and she felt that he was a very good doctor, but this was mostly because he always called on her birthday.

Most illness is experienced as a scatterplot of symptoms and challenges, not as a straight and sudden decline. This is what makes prognostication difficult and caretaking so gruelling: in addition to being sad, expensive, and exhausting, being responsible for a sick or aging loved one is also unpredictable. Our minds play tricks on us, so that signs of degeneration can go unnoticed for years and then come into focus as harbingers of doom. There are good days and bad ones, but it’s most important to keep your eye on the slope of the curve.

For a long while, Harriet’s curve was bending downward. She spent the pandemic in her apartment in Toronto, mostly alone. She relied on oxygen at night and sometimes during the day. She was also lucid, mentally energetic, and blessedly tech-savvy. She subsisted largely on maple cookies and crackers with marmalade. She was doing O.K., until she wasn’t.

At the end of January, Harriet was admitted to the hospital with new shortness of breath, initially attributed to an exacerbation of a chronic lung issue and a mild pneumonia. After a few days, she developed an internal bleed, and her blood count remained stubbornly low even after it was addressed. She needed blood transfusions as a result, and then diuresis so that her stiff heart would be able to handle the additional fluid.

The essence of geriatric medicine is the anticipation of cascading health problems like the ones that Harriet was facing. “Frail” is a colloquial term used to describe little old ladies, but frailty is also a clinical syndrome that affects more than just our bones and muscles. With time and stress, our internal organs and biological systems become worn, brittle, less resilient to infections and injuries, more susceptible to toxicities. Sick bodies usually have multiple problems, and, over time, these problems become intertwined. Heart failure leads to kidney failure, which worsens the heart failure, which makes breathing feel more labored. A mind that’s slipping away might mean that a person forgets how to provide their own basic hygiene, gets new infections, takes antibiotics, and becomes more confused from the medication’s side effects. When people speak of “dying of old age,” this type of spiral is usually what they mean. Aging alone doesn’t kill us.

After a week in the hospital, Harriet was too weak to sit up on the side of her bed. On the phone, her voice sounded faint and slow. My mother couldn’t visit her because of isolation protocols, and the hospital was stretched for staffing. As the days went on, I became more anxious not just that we might lose her but that we might lose her inside, alone, away from us. Her doctors kept looking for ways to fix her. I felt that I could see the big picture better than they could. She wasn’t going to be easily fixed, and I wanted to get her home.

I tried, with little success, to get Harriet to tell me what she wanted. Midway through her hospitalization, we discussed the prospect of a colonoscopy, which her doctors had proposed to look for another source of the bleeding. I thought the rationale for something so invasive was dubious, and that the potential complications were a clear reason to decline. Harriet wouldn’t say no, but she also wasn’t saying, as some of my patients have in the past, that she wanted to “do everything.” Instead she said she’d think about it, and asked how my baby was doing. “ Thank you for calling, my darling,” she said in her diminished voice, as we got off the phone.

Technically, Harriet’s attitude is called denial. But denial was one of her best survival strategies, a way of having a fine time even when things were not fine at all. This was a woman who loved being alive, even as her life became more constrained. Alone in the hospital, miserable, sleepless, barely eating, bruised and bleeding, she behaved as though she were merely unhappy, jet-lagged on a layover. Her will to live was primal and powerful. She was lucid through everything. She was a complete miracle in this way: her brain never got cloudy, because it refused to track the weather of her body.

At the end of the second week of Harriet’s hospitalization, my extended family met on Zoom to talk about bringing her home. She had received many medical interventions in the past ten days, but she was also worse than she had been upon entering the hospital in the first place. Twelve people representing two generations, ages twenty-nine to seventy, were on the call. Some were in Israel, some in the United States, some in Canada. A few of my cousins had been in touch with my grandmother every day for years, and her absence from the grid of faces was discomforting. No one wanted to have a meeting about Harriet without Harriet.

Family meetings are considered the palliative-care practitioner’s core procedure. An experienced facilitator listens more than she talks, and then summarizes, clarifies, and organizes; her job isn’t to tell the family what to do, but to help them articulate it for themselves. I forgot all my practiced communication techniques when speaking to my own family members, tripped up by my intimacy with the patient and with them. I monologued, with pauses for questions. I explained Harriet’s medical situation and emphasized that her doctors hadn’t found much that they could treat to cure. I talked about bringing her home to take care of her in the most essential sense: to feed her the soup she wanted from a specific Jewish restaurant, to cajole her into taking bites. I said we could always change our minds if things got much worse or much better. I didn’t know how long she had, but didn’t we want to be with her while we could? Everyone agreed that we did, not because I’d demonstrated skill in guiding them toward that decision, but because we all loved the same dynamic, maddening woman in the same devoted way. I booked a flight to Toronto that day.

The beautiful death at home —with luxuries, like roses or furs, or simply in comfort and safety—is hard to come by, even for those who want it. It’s almost impossible for people who do not have family or friends who can devote significant time and resources to caring for them; it’s completely impossible for people who do not have homes. It’s sometimes impossible for reasons related to the dying process itself: a person can be suffering too much to be treated safely at home, or need the attention of more people than a family can afford to have at the bedside. In the U.S., if you elect to enroll in home hospice, you typically must forgo any interventions that are considered disease-modifying or life-extending. This is a choice forced by health-care economics and reductive ideas about the line between living and dying. Practically, it means that people delay preparing for death at home so they can continue to receive physical therapy, or try one more round of chemo.

Harriet, in her refusal to engage with goals of care, hadn’t articulated a wish for the beautiful death at home. Nonetheless, I hoped one was possible. She was dwindling, not suffering. We had plenty of family around interested in taking part in her care. Her apartment could be reconfigured to accommodate new ways of living. We could afford to supplement the services provided by Ontario’s public-insurance benefits, which are more flexible and generous than what one typically gets in the U.S., and we had a network of contacts who could help us get what we needed even in the midst of the pandemic. Still, it took days to organize the hospital bed, the commode, the aides who would teach us to care for her body, the referrals from social work, the prescriptions, the appointments. During that time, Harriet remained in the hospital, getting weaker.

Four of us went over to the apartment to prepare for her return. We paused as we organized her room to show one another the sublime and the ridiculous things that we found. Sublime: a letter that Lou’s dear friend had written to my mother and her siblings after Lou died, saying how much he had loved my grandfather. Ridiculous: a tiny clay pot filled with brooches shaped like sunglasses. Proustian: several bottles of White Shoulders perfume, all partially used.

Finally, Harriet came home. The most striking thing was how much she looked like her mother, whom I called Nanny Annie, who died at the age of ninety-five. Her facial structure seemed not just thinner or older but rearranged from her own; she looked exactly like Annie. I sent a photo to my cousins, who agreed that the resemblance was not just uncanny but new. None of us had seen it before. I had the strange sensation of being in a play in which an older performer replaces a younger one to show that time has passed.

The character in the bed was still Harriet, though, changed but undiminished. My sister Ella has said that our grandmother was always authentically herself, even if she was also constantly performing the role of herself, for her pleasure and ours. “That was a nightmare,” Harriet told me, referring to her time in the hospital. Her grip was stronger than I had imagined. She let me swab the dead skin off her lips and moisten her mouth with a little sponge on a stick; she let me gently wipe the gunk that had built up between her eyelashes and examine places where her skin was breaking down. “You’re a good doctor, Rach,” she said, as I helped her turn her tiny body.

She asked me to read her a draft of this essay, which I had started writing the night after we’d had the fraught conversation about the colonoscopy. We both teared up as I read, she when I mentioned my grandfather, I when I talked about her dying. She asked me to take out something I’d written that was “a secret.” But Harriet was pleased, and said she wanted the piece to be published. Over the next few days I listened to various family members sit with her, and heard her speak about the past more fulsomely than I remembered her doing before. She attended, without conscious intention, to what the palliative-care doctor Ira Byock has called the five tasks of the dying: saying I’m sorry, saying I forgive you, saying thank you, saying I love you, saying goodbye. She reminisced, and apologized for small and big things. She expressed satisfaction in the resolution of old conflicts. She said she missed my grandfather. She told everyone she loved them, and thanked us for taking care of her. When we’d try to leave her to rest, she’d hold our hands and tell us to stay. She didn’t want to miss anything.

About a week after Harriet came home, my mother called to tell me that her oxygen was low. Harriet looked weak over FaceTime. “Will I live?” she asked me, a more direct question than any she had ever posed before. “Well, not forever,” I joked. She smiled and said, “True.” She died at 2:45 A.M. the next day, holding hands with my aunt Nicki and Norma, the care worker who was spending the nights with her.

There is a current of personality in my family that extends from Harriet to her children to my sisters and cousins and me. I see it in my daughter, too. We all vibrate at a specific frequency, which we jokingly call the Life Force. We share a vigorous curiosity, a confident way of thinking, a sureness that we bring the action with us. At Harriet’s eightieth birthday party, in a private room at a chic downtown hotel, all her children and grandchildren raised their glasses and toasted her with the cry, “Big ups to the Life Force!” Everyone thought this was funny, and everyone meant it.

I have often remarked that I didn’t go into medicine to simply bear witness, but the work has a way of forcing you to do just that. Even with foresight and the most careful attention, you cannot plan on grace, or force closure; you cannot practice someone’s last words in advance. People die as they live and live as they are. Harriet didn’t intend to die at all, and yet she did so in a way that perfectly reflected her spirit and charisma. How did she manage it? To be with my immortal grandmother through her last breath made death and dying strange to me anew; in losing Harriet, I had never felt so close to her.

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My grandmother's death

A high school reflection on gratitude and grief.

I wrote my college application essay about what my relationship with my grandmother meant to me and what it was like to spend time caring for her in the last days of her life. I sat for hours in the school library typing this essay, tears streaming down my face as I tried to describe what it felt like to be so grateful and so grief-stricken at the same time. This essay is an artifact of my 17-year-old heart and mind and a testament to what my grandmother Marjorie meant to me in both life and death.

My Grandmother’s Death

November 2003

A lot of things happened the summer before my senior year of high school. I started driving, my mother remarried, I opened my first checking account, and my mother spent eight weeks in New Mexico while I stayed home with my stepfather and worked at a convenience store. But the most important part of this summer was that I was going to spend it with my grandmother. And then, eight days into vacation, my grandmother became ill with pneumonia. Nine days later, she passed away.

In society today, it seems that death, especially of older relatives, is met with grief over missed opportunities. We often wish that the relative in question had lived just one last week, one final day, so that we could take the opportunity to say “I love you,” or “You mean the world to me.” I was fortunate. My relationship with my grandmother was never like that. 

I spent the summer before seventh grade with my grandparents in Kingston, NY. That summer, I learned many things from my grandmother. I learned the correct order in which to iron the different parts of a man’s shirt, how to fold a fitted sheet so that it doesn’t wrinkle, and how to make smooth gravy without the awful white lumps. But more than that, I learned the true meaning of respecting your elders. My grandmother was a very small person. In her younger years she always prided herself on her twenty-five-inch waist and stature of exactly five feet and three quarter inches. She was active in any conversation topic that came up. Even if she had no previous knowledge or experience with what was being discussed, her canned response was always, “I know.” 

The grandmother I knew looked nothing like this. She was gray, wrinkled and stooped over from years of poor posture and not enough calcium. But she still carried with her the air of authority and control that I grew to love and admire, she still seemed to be in the know about anything that came her way and she still spoke as though she expected her listeners to take her seriously. Even when her macular degeneration gradually lessened her ability to see to that of mere contour, she still moved about her house with confidence and grace, sure of the place of everything she owned. 

 That summer, because my grandmother was blind, I read her my favorite books, and she in turn told me of her adventures as a Communist spy in Europe. As I learned of her travels with my grandfather and eventual imprisonment in a convent in France, she too learned of the intricacies of the world of Hogwart’s. We did crossword puzzles together as I read her the clues and told her the number of open spaces. And more than anything, we talked – about the news, her most recent book on tape, and our lives, both where they had gone and where they would go. After that summer, I only saw my grandmother during vacations or on an occasional weekend. But each time, we would talk as though not a minute had passed since our last meeting. 

I had a feeling that this past summer would be my grandmother’s last, even before it began. After my grandfather’s passing six months before, my grandmother lost her will to live. It was only a matter of time. I knew it was important that I take this last opportunity to show my grandmother how much I truly cared about her. And then, two days before my mother’s scheduled date of departure for New Mexico, my grandmother was hospitalized. My mother left as scheduled. In the last days of my grandmother’s life, I fed her meals to her, brushed her teeth, and cleaned her dentures. I knew that she was more comfortable being cared for by me than by a nurse and I helped the nurses understand her needs and wants. And as always, we talked, though much more slowly and quietly than we had in the past.

In our last conversation, we exchanged words more direct and meaningful than any we had shared before.

“Grandma, I know you’re tired, but are you listening?” She nodded.

“I hope you know that I love you dearly. And… you’ve influenced me more than anyone else in my life. And I’m so glad that you’ve had the opportunity to have such a strong impact on me.”

“I know … me too.” She paused for a minute, seemingly trying to catch her breathe, to gather her thoughts for one last connection. I waited and at last she spoke. 

“I’m glad I knew you.” 

In the last hours before her death, I decided that I had had enough. I kissed my grandmother gently on the cheek and went to sit and wait in the visitors’ lounge. In the early hours of morning, I sat on the cold plastic sofa taking in the distinctive hospital aroma of sterilized metal and name-brand cleaning solution, cementing the moment in my mind. Images of my grandmother and me playing checkers, making pies, ironing shirts, and stirring gravy flashed through my mind. I realized that this was it, the end. And at the same time I realized that that was okay. Overcome with nostalgia, I began to cry. But I did not cry tears of lost opportunity. I cried tears of happiness. I realized that, though I was sad to lose my grandmother, her passing, as well as the rest of my lifelong relationship with her, had been the best that it possibly could have been. 

As odd as it may sound, it’s probably accurate to say that the best part of this summer was my grandmother’s death. It was sudden and fast, the way she wanted it. And I was able to spend almost every minute of the last days of her life by her side. But the best part of all is that I have no regrets.

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The Death of My Grandmother and Lessons Learnt Essay

1. introduction.

As my first solo essay, I decided to write about a personal experience. I ended up writing "The Death of My Grandmother and Lessons Learned," which is a personal essay. In this essay, I reflected on the significance of family and how my grandmother's death truly had an impact on me and my family as a whole. I have been really looking forward to writing this piece as I got to use my emotions and think deeper about the stages of mourning and personal experience of losing a loved one. This essay is provided as an example of how to write a personal paper. And as I go through the steps of the grieving period, it helped me to understand and accept the death, which, I hope, can show the readers who are still in grief the way to find light in their own journeys. This essay presents me with the opportunity to show how I showed development thought about my emotions and self-reflection. I used this essay to argue that my grandmother's death was a powerful and shedding moment as well as a lesson to value all that I received. Also, to use analytical ability to go past established meanings or truth and critically evaluate situations. I learned during my term in Death and Dying about many aspects that come to play within the course of one's life and the mourning period and I learned about the many ways to examine the event of grief and loss. And I have learned about denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance that I can apply in my essay. Explanation: My examining of the steps of mourning and the showcasing of the step by step process throughout my essay reflects my growth in that writing. My purpose of this essay is to discuss my views of the phases of grief during the mourning as well as after the acceptance. Also, by taking the readers through a journey and by showing them the turning points in my own development with the help of my grandmother's death, I hope to shed light for the readers who may still be struggling in the dark. The essay was written as a final piece for my "Death and Dying" class. I chose it to be in my portfolio because I noticed my growth in my writing effectively through the stages of revising, drafting, and editing. And the class was very fascinating and with a personal essay, I feel as though I have finally spoken from the innermost feelings as well as the lessons that I have learned. I hope that my ability to put deep emotions and reflection into words will be an inspiration to the readers and also help.

1.1. Background of my grandmother

I planned to go at long last to see her, as I missed the verification, even right now played out. It every now and again felt that I understood my nan from the records and pictures, in any case I never genuinely knew her. I didn't have the foggiest thought regarding the sum she expected to my mother, or what her personality was the time when she was lively, or the difficulties she looked for an incredible duration. I missed meeting her before it was too far to turn back and regardless of the way that I appreciated that she died in her nineties and had a fair life, it was so far something that I felt I expected to mourn. We up and left at a young hour in the day. We were by and large set up to make the day's trek. I never had an inclination that I had an incredible arrangement of noteworthiness in my life; I've never been the sort of person to lead a gathering or be groundbreaking. I can diagram inside minutes of me setting off home and just being incapacitated. There's one critical point in time where I recalled that I lost control - I was overpowered by the things that I hadn't the faintest idea. The official, as he let me know, gave us as much time as we required in the room, and the moment he encouraged me I could approach, in any case, I simply crushed. I tended to the room. There were these dinners that she'd left and cards and gifts on the windowsill - there was an extensive measure of Mickey Mouse ministats. That was something that I hadn't the faintest idea. She revered Mickey Mouse; I hadn't the faintest idea.

1.2. The news of her passing

I was in my final year in college. Tim, my younger brother, was completing his high school education. All along, our grandmother used to encourage us to work hard and excel in our studies. She used to say that hard work pays off, and we should all confidently face every challenge. I clearly remember her advising Tim to study hard so that he may join college too. Every word that she spoke was full of wisdom and encouragement. Sometimes she would talk to us about life experiences that made her have a lot of wisdom. I know I used to think that she was too serious, but her departure has made me realize that she was creating some kind of connection with us. On 15th June 2012, at around 10.30 a.m., my mother received a phone call. When she hung up, tears could be seen welling up in her eyes. She slowly whispered, "Your grandmother has left us." I can never forget the words that my mother used. It sounded like she was too attached to grandma. Her face turned pale, and we had to support her to sit down. I felt a painful sensation in my heart. It is difficult to explain how I felt. My grandmother had been sick for quite some time. However, she was good at medication, and we were all hopeful that she would recover from her illness. The news was so shocking. We all leaned on the walls. Mum tried to control herself, but it seemed too hard for her. It was like a dream. Mum was full of sorrows and agony. She steadied her breathing and said, "We have to arrange how to go and see her for the last time before they take her to the morgue." I saw a difficult wrinkle on her face. The house was filled with a moment of sadness. Nobody knew how to express his or her feelings. I felt a sense of emptiness because her departure meant a lot of things in our lives. I just went to my bedroom and locked myself there. I failed to control my tears as they swelled down my cheeks. I tried to remember the last moments that I spent with her when we were celebrating her birthday. It was after she opened all the gifts that we had brought to her that she called me near her. She held my hand and said, "I always feel proud of you and your brother. I have lived happily watching all your success. Remember my advice, work hard, and always help others. God will always protect you." I always thought that we could spend other birthdays together. I never knew it was the last time she was talking to me. Her words now keep me in deep thoughts. Every time I remember them, I get a different feeling altogether. Her death was a moment that I will never forget. I can remember each and every scenario that unfolded. Her farewell marked the end of a golden heritage. From that day onwards, I have always had in my mind what my late grandmother told me on her bed. She told me that her life was a blessing and it was about time that God should take her to rest. She also added that we should not view her death as something that has taken away our joy and peace. We should take it as the beginning of a new season in our lives, and we should move forward with courage and happiness.

1.3. Purpose of the essay

The purpose of my essay is that, I can share my experiences of my life especially after the death of my grandmother. My grandmother was really important in my life. I used to spend most of my time with her when I was a child. I used to talk about every single thing to my grandmother, she was a very good listener. She always gives me good and useful advice as where it is needed and with those advice I received, I have actually learned a lot from her. She has been my best friend and somebody whom I know I can trust because after my mother. However, what saddens me is that, I never had the opportunity to be in the same judging panel as she was, I never had the opportunity to offer her my shoulder and listen to her because I was young and I was still inexperienced to see things on a better view. It has been a tiring day for us as a family; it has been a hard moment for everyone. I held back my tears and I did what I have to do - to console my family, to motivate and help them to make sure that things are on the right track and I know I must stay strong to do that because I am seen as the eldest among my cousins. That moment taught me the meaning of responsibility and above all, the profound lessons that I have learned from making all this unknown being known to the world. The hidden power of my spirit and soul, the lessons of my weaknesses, my sensitiveness and above all, my weak body against sorrow, pain, loss and anguish. Most of all, my grandmother had given another spirit which is the teaching spirit from that infinite flow of boundless love. With that, I wish this essay serves as a very special bequest not only to my course mates but start sharing and doing for the world as what my grandmother had taught me in her lifetime. Let her spirit rest in peace and her teaching in this material world will last for eternity.

2. Lessons Learnt

And who would not do this? This puts grave consideration behind humor and idiocy. Well, the words of the dying old man should have been and desired to be words of wisdom - a way of caution. This old man who so unwaveringly supplied my choice of company could not, in his later years, have been entirely content with the life he had led, could not have been entirely successful in its portrayal of one huge and unending joke. As a matter of fact, he told me so. He knew, as I knew, that the misery of marriage he claimed as the oppressive food of humor was nothing but a personal and accidental contempt for women. He knew, as I knew, that his derision of everything 'morally just' was nothing but an excuse to smoke away life in the eyes of a greater and more overbearing Creator. He knew, as I knew, that it was impossible to disguise an illogical acceptance of his own death, because death in itself was absolutely infuriating to his exhibition of humor. But the stubbornness. The lack of self-examination! Arrested in a kind of twisted development, he chose only to prod at the surfaces of existence with this pole of twisted intellect. He lived against reason and assert judgment as its master; he sought only his own amusement, as is evidence in the clear direction of his life's story - he has died in a comical fashion, and he has left his narrative in my hands. The value of fun and amusement in life is indeed a good one; a life without light-heartedness, a life without childish relief or critical satire, is a life more forlorn and futile. But just as a man cannot find a treasure with every sigh he exerts in his lifetime, humor is only a detail on the great and winding quest that is the pursuit of joy. Every effort to create an identity founded upon the vacuous, ridiculous, and anti-social gestures of an alienated modernity only serves to deepen the divide between man and his satisfaction. I will mourn the passing of my friend, who died with a stubborn smirk of misplaced intellect, and I will assist the proper burial of Signor Roman. I hope that, free from the strangling constraints of his own foolish disposition, he will find the light that was necessary to pave the road of his existence. In fact, the heavens doubtless resound with the cynical laughter of another soul born into peace. But my laughter will be of joy.

2.1. The importance of family

The family is an extremely important social institution. It is the first institution where a child interacts from their early life. I would think that the most important feature of family is unity. At school, if I made a mistake, the teacher would punish me, and my friends in class would laugh at me. However, they could not help me solve the problem. I would feel lonely and ignored. But in my family, when I had a trouble, my parents and my sister would share with me and try to find the solution. I would feel very warm and comfortable. "Home sweet home", there are always people to share the problems and relax. Also, I have learnt that in the family, all the family members are helpful to each other. My parents have to work very often, so I need to look after my sister at home. My sister and I need to do the housework such as sweeping and taking turn to wash the dishes. We need to cooperate and share the housework. I have learnt to be a responsible person. These experiences in my family helped me to realize the importance of family. My family is a small family with three people. My mother is a housewife and my father is a famous doctor. We live in an apartment. Of course I respect my parents! In a word, family is such a place where we get to know more about our lives. In order to be chosen as a member of a family, we have to have the same goals, and most important, we have to work together and be responsible. We have to help and share with each other. Congratulations! I have found that by writing this essay, I have learned many things about what makes a family. It makes all of us to realize what the word "family" means and how important in the life. The essay entitled in the importance of family. Well, when we are going to writing, we have to was first identify the main reason of this topic is and what we need to do with this topic. This is the time when we make a rough plan of the essay and start to reading. However, if you do not access to Internet, it can be done by keep asking and keep thinking. Yes, today, I have finalized my essay. Finally, we write the final copy of the essay. But I know a good starting of the essay is the most important. Oh that’s incredible! I really very enjoy writing and sharing in English. Thanks to my great English teacher and friends and the Internet and from the books. I am very happy. By the way, it worth a million to say "family". Thanks for every thing!

2.2. Cherishing moments with loved ones

We never know when someone we care about will pass away. We may have thousands of experiences, but just one of them may be our last. We will never be able to do that special thing with that special someone for the first time again. My grandmother's death has taught me that the most beautiful and cherished moments are not only the ones we planned to have. Cherishing every second we spent with our loved ones is the lesson that I learned. When I was a child, my grandmother often told me many stories about her youth time. Every time when she started telling a story, her eyes were shining and she was full of excitement. At that time, I was too young and I did not quite understand why she was so happy to tell the stories all the time. So every time she started talking, I just rolled my eyes and hid behind a sofa to play with my tablet. Now, when I close my eyes, I can see clearly her smile, her wave body and her shining eyes. But it also became my regret. I will never have the chance to have our conversations again and I will never be able to show my smile and tell her how much I enjoy the time we spent together. It's too late. I will never know how the story will end if I show my love to her and cherish the last moment. Cherishing every moment you have with somebody is the best feeling you have in your heart when they pass away. It is like giving the person a valuable gift with all your love. It is really wonderful to know that you left something good and joyful in somebody's heart. There are many ways to cherish. It can be just telling the person you love, hugging and kissing them, or spending a whole day with them. Cherishing must come from your heart. And I cherish moments with my grandmother by treating her like a close friend. We took photos together, we shared our stories together, and we danced together. Those memories will never fade in my mind and I wish she will be happy to know I love her. Cherishing moments with loved ones can make life be fulfilled with joy and love. My grandmother's death brought our whole family a deep sense of loss and a deep experience of pain. Every time we recall her, a strong aspiration to have her back with us in life springs in our mind. Every time I think about her, I wish I could have one more day to visit her. She raised my mom and my mom raised me. She is the very person that I can never live without. And she is also the very first person that taught me what is like to love, to care, and to be cherished. Thanks for her lessons, I know how to embrace and to respect the beauty of life. I know lessons will not perish in me and in my philosophies of life. I know that life time is full of unexpected and also the expected. So, no matter now or in the future, I will always bring her love with me and never be afraid of the moments of being cherished by love. I believe my grandmother is happy to know that I finally understand the message she wants to convey in the stories. I believe she is happy to see that I learn how to love and to be loved. I believe she is always watching me. And I know, now, she is resting in God's arms and preparing for her next shining when the judgment day comes. I will always bear in my heart that I believe the power and wisdom of love will cherish the lives of those who are in need. And I will live by the life mottos that I have learned from my grandmother, "to love and be greater than the greatness of love" and to cherish someone now because at the end, the memory will be a thing that you can keep it when you are alive. What we have today is really the most beautiful thing that you can have. Enjoy every moment you have with your loved ones. Because you never know, today may be the last time that you will see them. Thanks for making me believe. Thanks for making me strong. I love you, grandma. Thank you for everything you have done for me. Thank you for your lesson - to love and be loved. Rest in peace.

2.3. Coping with grief and loss

What I found surprising about the aftermath of my grandmother's death was how people had different coping mechanisms. My grandfather, for example, seemed to avoid dealing with the loss by trying to keep himself busy every second of the day - he was always out in the garden doing something, working on a new DIY project, or attending social clubs. He immersed himself in doing things for himself, which is something he wasn't able to do when my grandma was still around as he was always too busy caring for her. On the other hand, my mother seemed to have the opposite experience. She told me that she often felt overwhelmed with the responsibility of planning for the funeral, clearing out my grandma's personal items and dealing with financial matters. She was so preoccupied with everything that needed to be done that she didn't have time to process the emotional loss. I think that, like my granddad, she was also trying to avoid dealing with the grief. I've heard that people who are grieving often feel selfish about the idea of taking time to themselves - worrying that they are neglecting other important things. I think this was apparent in my mother's experience, and probably part of the reason she couldn't let herself pause and relax. One thing that really struck me was that no one's coping mechanism seemed 'right' - there's this strange sort of expectation that people who are working through their grief should do it quietly or in an orderly fashion, but everyone seemed to be doing the opposite. There's no right or wrong way to mourn; there's simply what happens when someone dies. We all have to find a way of accepting, coping and living without that person around, and whatever path we take to get there is fine. I think that's one of the biggest lessons I've learnt about grief and loss - it's not something that comes with a guidebook, an expiry date, or a process to follow. And maybe that's what makes it so horrifying and unsettling when you first experience it and why it can feel so difficult to support someone who is grieving.

2.4. Reflection on life and mortality

I used to think that I was different and that I somehow lucked out. I mean, people die every day, right? So I didn't understand why I felt bad for the people in the obituaries. I'm now walking an anxiety-laden road, and every evening it triumphs over me. I'm exposed to more brittle, a well-versed mortality every day. If my grandmother, who was the closest person in this world to me, can pass away, then anyone can. I'm constantly concerned for my life and for the lives of everyone around me. I can remember every single emotion, word, and thought about the loss of my grandmother but not about any other date, event, or occasion. In the beginning, I threw myself at a facade of social life, convincing myself that I wasn't leading a life of pretense. I was trying to prove to others I was happy and life hadn't changed. My focus in life was to finish this internal affliction and distress and demonstrate that I was getting on with my life. But, in fact, it was just a diversion from what had happened. But the most positive lesson learned from my grandmother's death is the fact that I had to reflect on it. The emotional roller-coaster, from sadness to guilt, was a personal anguish that led me to honestly reflect on myself as a person, on my lifestyle, and my responses to the people who love and care for me. I reconciled with the fact that my grandmother had passed away, but the lesson learned from the loss was the fact that I had healed the relationships with my family and most of all, with myself. My grandmother was probably one of the most important things in my life, and the time I spent with her was the most precious time of all. But when I reflect on the good times, the fun, and the laughter, it brings me enormous joy. And as I continue my journey without my grandmother, I thank her for enlightening me on the importance of cherishing those moments and appreciating the true worth of quality time spent with loved ones. She showed me the finality of death and the theory that death has to be victorious every day of our lives as it has never been recognized in any other sense. Through my grandmother's experience, these spiritual words now resonate within me more than ever. I have come to understand and appreciate how fragile life is and how its serenity can be shattered in an instant. Even though I don't want to live in fear like I used to, I believe that I have been given the wisdom to acknowledge that every day is a gift. Every smile, every laugh, every tear, and every word expressed - it is all a gift. Every time I feel the warmth of the sunshine brushing gently against my face or I hear the burst of harmonious nature, it is another gift. Every day I can come home to my family and talk about our days, it is a gift. And because of my grandmother's illustration of courage and perseverance, her story has given me the insight to realize the importance of a gift. Every day holds the possibility of a miracle, and my grandmother has given me the miraculous gift of the realization. For that, I am deeply grateful. But I needed to choose the message and the importance of the experience from losing a loved one. I needed to choose the right path and the service, especially after the final lesson that my grandmother had taught me. And when I found that last piece and placed it into the puzzle, I had discovered a sense of peace and harmony within myself. A realization of life's purpose and a direction to what I want to achieve and the person I want to become were cultivated throughout my journey. Albeit these lessons have been hard and demanding, the sense of gratitude and moral with substance has given me that ambition to be more and to give more in life. Every single breath that I draw is a living testimony to the internal love and passion manifested by my grandmother. She may no longer be with me physically, but through her words, I truly believe that spirit and her memories live within me, and I could not ask for a better remedy.

3. Conclusion

The last two months have been a whirlwind of a journey for me, mainly filled with negative experiences - pain and bouts of what I believe to be depression and anger at times. However, as the dust started to settle and I was given time to refill my lungs with the oxygen I was depriving myself of, I have started to realise that suffering pain is like a rain in summer – something that we can never run nor hide from, and it is focused mainly in some parts of our lives, which makes a lot of sense as it makes the pain itself easier to cope with and in a way, make us understand that pain comes for a reason. Although at times it is hard for me to know and understand what that reason is, the fault does not lie within the pain itself, and neither is it with the self. Rather, it is our perception and approach towards those suffering that determines the severity and the mark that it will leave on us, physically and mentally. From the harsh experience of watching those swimming in their cloaks of ignorance and arrogance around me, the feeling was 'echoing' in the very corner of my heart and the disappointment cruised in my vessels, and it was that very pain and emptiness that made me wonder why. The most profound discovery that came to me was the lack of understanding and empathy - two entities that I have failed to expand recently. The pain has surfaced our beings for a very reason, and that reason is supposed to be the stepping stone to building the pathway of two souls into one another, where both can share and draw strength from. However, it is an art indeed to be mastered, the skill of understanding and embracing the vulnerability and threat that any type of grief brings upon a being. Up until now, I have not met a soul who possesses this inner skill. I was just like the way how some people around me were; all blinded and consumed by their own facade, that is only when suffering is showcased then only their temporary reality bubble without such misery pops. It is true that the 'death' of something does bring about the birth or the discovery of something. It is undeniable and it is inevitable, just how the night will eventually overpower the day. Whether it is the eventual acceptance of a person's passing, the transformation and folding of a significant chapter of one's life, the adulteration of a pristine condition of something by an unwelcoming, alienated presence, it results in the same nature - that is changes. Such discovery leads to the birth of a series of deep questions that I feel obliged and determined to unravel. For example, what has emerged from the death? What forces that marginalized the act of understanding and expansion of empathy? What are the potential that can be nurtured and flourished from such an existential anguish experienced by all lives? However, the most important question presides and stands above all, just like the proud flags waving in the wind and the glistening holy grail - how can we truly benefit and accept the eternal embrace of the pain and suffering? The answers to such questions lie in the unbiased and calm reflection of the sequences and consequences that steps up to the current state of affair. And it is to my belief that our commitment and acceptance to the genuine understanding of the suffering of ourselves and the others play a major role in pacifying and elucidating such enigma of excruciating experience. Through suffering, the growth of the self and soul alike do run. May the rain find you in the drought's end and let it baptize and purify your soul. And may you find peace and wisdom from the pain that you will encounter, for it will light up your path and awaken your empathy and understanding in the darkest hours of life. I am glad that I was given a chance to be encountered by such experience, one that can provide a solid ground for me to grow and to develop the pathways of understanding. I'm looking forward to the journey of truly understanding the suffering and existence. And the society should too. Thank you for spending your time.

3.1. Final thoughts on the experience

I feel that the death of my grandmother was a turning point in my life. It had come at a time when I was learning how to cope with my feelings and learning to understand the feelings of others, especially my family. I had also just started to learn to appreciate what is around me. This event of her passing and what came after has taught me a lot about how to take care of others and how to create a sense of security and stability in a community. Her death has also taught me to value what I have - my family and my friends, and to recognise the feelings of others around me. I feel that my relationships with those around me have become a little stronger because I feel that I want to look after and care for the people that I know and love. The whole experience, from the moment I found out that she was in hospital and unwell, to the celebration of her life at her funeral, has taught me a lot about what it means to be alive. I'm thankful that I had the chance to learn from my grandmother and I feel that the sadness from her passing reminds me now that I have a responsibility to myself and to others to make the most of what is there. I have come to realise that her death has forced me to take a wider look at the world and how I should be living my life. It has really encouraged me to live my life by a principle - sort of as a tribute to her and the way she lived. The grief that I felt and the emotions that I have gone through has been different to anything I have experienced before and I feel that it has allowed me to open up to the emotions of others. I got to understand that people experience and demonstrate grief in many different ways and that you have to really be there for someone if they are going through a hard time. I have also realised that life is extremely fragile and just how important it is to cherish every moment - something that I am trying to practice every day. I constantly remind myself that I have to live my life to the full, in the best way that I can and to create the happiness for myself and those around me. Every choice that I make in life now is for her, and for my future. Her death has taught me that in order to make the most of your life, it's important to come to terms with the fact that everyone's journey comes to an end. I feel that I have achieved a sense of maturity and understanding from having to deal with her passing. It has changed the way that I perceive things and the way that I think about my own actions and emotions. Her death has also motivated and made me passionate about spreading awareness and knowledge for preventing the spread of cancer, a terrible disease that takes the lives of so many people without justice. Her death has left a hole in my family and in my life, but the experience of going through the process of grief and reflection has helped me and those around me to begin to heal, and to treasure those memories that I have with her. I feel that her presence and her memory will never leave me. I hope that from now on, every treasure holiday, birthday or event that I share with my family and friends, I can draw on the loving memory of my grandmother and have the feeling that she is smiling down on us. I sincerely hope that those around me will not have to suffer the pain and sadness that I had gone through and will never forget the importance of living life in the happiest and healthiest way possible. God bless her soul. God bless my grandmother. Thank you.

3.2. The impact on personal growth

Death is the end of physical life, and this author knows that. However, the spiritual life is eternal, and this is what he gained after his grandmother's death. Somewhere in the mind of the author, he had never thought of the world without his grandmother with him, but he was in a moment that he could not believe that his grandmother had been taken away by death. With this incident he had to learn to accept the reality, and he knew that there is nothing permanent in this world. People change, moment will never stop, and everything will fade one day. Time will never go back, and the only thing that people can do is to cherish whatever they hold at a moment. This was what he figured out after the death. He felt that it is so bliss that he had such a good chance to cook with his grandmother. Although he had never been an active helper, he was always convinced that his grandmother was so good in cooking whatever the food was to be. He cherished that moment and finally he understood he will never have such a great chance to cook with his grandmother. He started to give a deep thought and reflection to his behavior these while to his grandmother after he went back. His ignorance made his grandmother being left out and this was one of the big regret that he faced after his grandmother's death. He had never seen that at any moment of time, his grandmother would took her last breath facing such a great pain. He felt that he was not deserved to be treated like this and he just felt that why he could not spend a bit more time to understand his grandmother needs. From all traditions, from ancient times, there is no one who could really go through the burden of life without tasted the sweetness of time, which is family. In today's society, where he himself puts most into trouble to achieve the highest indulgence of life, which is a successful career and voices of the people, his family is often being neglected. He had never thought that at one day, his grandmother would left such a great impact on him. He knew that his grandmother had gone with all her burden because she knew that the time was nearly reach for her to leave the world. She left the world slowly but peacefully. And there was a smile on her face. He understood that in the world, the one who loves him the most will do the same way also. He felt so lucky to be given a fateful chance to meet his grandmother. And since then, he will lead any of his day, with the belief that God is fair. Every single day were ended at night will be another day and a chance for him to appreciate life and time that was given by God.

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Explaining Effect of Grandmother's Death on Grades

Question: In the first semester senior year, I experienced the loss of my grandmother (she passed away). My grandmother and I were really close, and her passing away greatly impacted my life personally. As a result, I had problems, and this had an impact on my first semester senior year grades (my mid year report). I don't think my mid year report accurately reflects my normal performance in school. Should I send a brief note to college adcoms regarding this matter?

I'm very sorry for your loss. My own son, a 10th grader, lost his grandmother in November (she was my mother-in-law) and I do understand the stress and sorrow that this brings to a family.

So it's fine to send a brief note to admission committees to explain your situation. Be sure to point out to the admission committees, as you have to me, that you and your grandmother were very close. And, if her death was not only sad but also disruptive to your school routine, you can explain this, too (e.g. if you missed more than a day or two of school to visit her or to attend a funeral, if you spent extra hours with her during her final days, or if she moved into your home).

In addition, a short letter from your school counselor that points out your atypical grades and their tie to your grandmother's death may carry a little more clout than your own note alone. If you have a good relationship with your counselor and think that he or she might have the time and willingness to write on your behalf, it can't hurt to ask.

Again, my condolences to you and to your family.

(posted 3/4/2013)

Sally Rubenstone

Sally Rubenstone knows the competitive and often convoluted college admission process inside out: From the first time the topic of college comes up at the dinner table until the last duffel bag is unloaded on a dorm room floor. She is the co-author of Panicked Parents' Guide to College Admissions; The Transfer Student's Guide to Changing Colleges and The International Student's Guide to Going to College in America. Sally has appeared on NBC's Today program and has been quoted in countless publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Weekend, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, People and Seventeen. Sally has viewed the admissions world from many angles: As a Smith College admission counselor for 15 years, an independent college counselor serving students from a wide range of backgrounds and the author of College Confidential's "Ask the Dean" column. She also taught language arts, social studies, study skills and test preparation in 10 schools, including American international schools in London, Paris, Geneva, Athens and Tel Aviv. As senior advisor to College Confidential since 2002, Sally has helped hundreds of students and parents navigate the college admissions maze. In 2008, she co-founded College Karma, a private college consulting firm, with her College Confidential colleague Dave Berry, and she continues to serve as a College Confidential advisor. Sally and her husband, Chris Petrides, became first-time parents in 1997 at the ripe-old age of 45. So Sally was nearly an official senior citizen when her son Jack began the college selection process, and when she was finally able to practice what she had preached for more than three decades.

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Essay about Personal Narrative: My Grandmother’s Death

As a character, Juliet, in Alice Munro’s story, “Silence,” does when her daughter’s disappearance, “every day when she was on her way home from work, she had wondered if perhaps Penelope would be waiting in the apartment” (Munro 133). She knows her daughter is gone, but she denies it to escape the sorrow. It was not because I did not know that my grandma is gone, but it hurt to accept the heartbreaking reality. I replaced it with the thinking that it was not true and I expected that I would see her walk through the door at the end of the summer.

Related posts:

"Dead Grandmother" Essay

<p>Is it terribly cliche to write about the experience of holding my grandmother’s hand as she died in the hospital? I’ve heard of the “dead grandmother” essays in which people talk about the death of a pet or relative, but I’m not sure what type of experience goes along with these essays. Also, I would either relate this experience to how I realized that being there for family is important or how I realized that living life/taking every opportunity is important to me because life could end at any moment. </p>

<p>I have another option, but I’ve started writing both and I feel more passionate about my grandmother (and my opening provides a detailed description of the scene as well as my emotions, I “show” not “tell”). I just wanted a few opinions on the matter. Thanks in advance.</p>

<p>This link might help. It has an example of a good death essay and a bad death essay.</p>

<p>[Essays</a>, Admission Information, Undergraduate Admission, U.Va.](<a href=“ http://www.virginia.edu/undergradadmission/writingtheessay.html]Essays ”> http://www.virginia.edu/undergradadmission/writingtheessay.html )</p>

<p>Basically, I think it will turn out well if you describe in it a unique, detailed way that focuses on description, not generic sentences that don’t add much. Remember that the essay should be something personal, something that only you would write, so it has the potential to turn out very nicely if you make it fresh enough - try to add your own personal touch or twist to it.</p>

<p>The lessons you said you would talk about drawing from the death are nice and all, and I’m sure the experienced mean a lot to you, but I feel like a lot of death essays would bring up that same theme of not taking life for granted. Maybe you could come up with something more personal and less grand, just because realizations like that don’t typically happen overnight in a way that’s life-altering. </p>

<p>Anyways, I think you can do a really good job with it as long as you approach it carefully. Best of luck!</p>

<p>The problem with death essays is that most students write the exact same one. Although your epiphany after her death is excellent for your own growth, I’ve personally read about a dozen essays of that EXACT same thing. It can be a great essay, but you have to think about what would be considered redundant for an essay reader. There is only so much sympathy/empathy that can go around.</p>

<p>Try to see this as adcoms will. Will your topic show how you are the right admit for this college? Does it show some of the personal qualities and strengths that will allow you to thrive, academically and socially, at this college?</p>

<p>Someone on this forum once stated, “There are no cliche topics, just cliche ways to approach a topic.” so I think that if you feel you can write a stellar essay with that topic, then you should go for it</p>

<p>I’m with looking forward. You’re trying to convince them you’ll really add to campus life. I’m not sure that what you took out of a family death, unless it was something truly unusual, will do that.</p>

<p>You can make any topic work as long as you are creative and relate it to yourself. That being said, I would generally avoid writing about death in your essays</p>

<p>Have sat in on several admission info sessions where this type of essay was discouraged!</p>

<p>i am also writing about the death of my grandma. Initially, I was afraid that admission officers will just flag it as another “dead grandma” essay. After I wrote it, I ask my teacher what she thought. She said that I stop talking about my grandma at the right time. About 1 paragraph. </p>

<p>My essay discussed her death and disease, the impact it had on me both immediately and over the long run, then how I used this motivation to create an fundraiser in my community and the skills that I learned from it, finally I tied it all together. </p>

<p>So i would recommend that you don’t talk about your grandma for more than a paragraph nd then focus on specific ways it impacted you because colleges want to know about you and not your grandma. I know it’s hard because you want everyone to know how close you were but unfortunately colleges don’t care about that.</p>

<p>I agree. If you do write about your grandmother, then this is how you need to do it</p>

<p>“…how I used this motivation to create an fundraiser in my community and the skills that I learned from it, finally I tied it all together.” </p>

<p>Simone has the right idea. A successful essay on a tough personal topic still needs to show you in the best light for the college admisisons process. And, btw, “show not tell” only means vivid descriptions in literary writing. Good luck.</p>

<p>I wrote about my dad’s death. It was a short but big part of my essay, and I’m happy I included it. PM me if you want me to read something.</p>

My 95-Year-Old Grandma Saved My Life When No One Else Could. Then She Did It Again — Months After Her Death.

Guest Writer

When I visited my family in Montreal after spending two weeks in a psych ward abroad, I quickly understood one thing: I would be living out of my carry-on while my family figured out what to do with me.

The first weeks were excruciating. My mom dragged me on morning walks around the hilly neighborhood, my father was oddly quiet, and mentioning my institutionalization was not permitted in the household. Despite the utter exhaustion, there was one outing I adored: visiting my Grandma Bevy. On the cusp of 95, the most fashionable nonagenarian in town saw past my failures and toward my future accomplishments, despite my itchy feelings of hopelessness.

Whenever I was hospitalized due to a bipolar episode, Grandma Bevy would call me on the spotty landline in the white-on-white-on-frightful hallway. I’d will myself out of bed in my oversized scrubs and bring a “psych ward safe” flexible pen to document her wisdom.

My parents never understood my motives for admitting myself inpatient: most often, a calculated plan involving stockpiled prescriptions. However, from hundreds of miles away, Grandma Bevy repeated over the phone, “I’m proud of you.”

When I overdosed on pills in 2019 and received my diagnosis, she announced, “It will be OK, sweetheart. It isn’t right now, but you’ll get through it.” Her determined voice got me to discharge.

That same voice would get me through this next chapter of my life in Montreal, as I tried to claw my way out of the grave that I had dug for myself in a fast-paced metropolitan city.

As a 30-year-old single woman plagued with mental illness, routine was essential to my executive functioning. Consistency helped me maintain equanimity. My grandmother’s daily phone calls became daily coffee talks, where she’d encouraged me to start physical training. On the days that I didn’t work out, I’d bake biscotti, and visit over lunchtime to show her videos of me deadlifting two Grandma Bevys. She weighed 100 pounds wet.

“Jenny, that’s too much weight,” she’d announce. “But wait. Can I see that video again?”

Some say to count your blessings, but I lost count of the number of blessings I had in my first year at home with Grandma Bevy — it made up for a decade of being away. She was the first person I wanted to tell about a good first date or laugh about a bad one, discuss the family business and family in general, or the blizzard outside, according to the weather channel (despite the clear skies outside our window).

In December 2022, she treated me to a round-trip train ride to Toronto. When I came home, it was like the fall of Rome; it happened slowly and then all at once.

It was my father’s birthday that Sunday, so we brought cupcakes and candles to Grandma Bevy’s apartment. After a couple of tired weeks, we were amazed by her incredible burst of energy. I witnessed my grandmother devour an entire chocolate cupcake, icing and all. It was quite the rarity for a woman who daren’t eat a french fry.

After opening presents, we switched on the Montreal Canadiens game, high on sugar and cautious optimism. Grandma Bevy faded by the third period. The buzzer sounded as her five-foot frame melted into the king-sized bed. We had been foiled by her terminal lucidity, or surge before the end. She would die within the week.

Suddenly, I didn’t know what to do with myself to fill the unbearable void. I had no one to visit midday and no reason to bake biscotti — pistachio, not almond, as she read on her iPad that they were higher in protein . Instead of the anticipated depression attached to grief, sleep deprivation from sitting by her bedside launched me into a manic panic. At her funeral, I ranted faster than Mrs. Maisel. I insomnibaked four dozen blueberry muffins for the extended family when sleep was no longer an option. I paced around her downtown neighborhood, convinced that everyone I passed was gathering intel to share with that same extended family — who were plotting against me, as were my friends.

The paranoia accumulated with the snowfall until spring hit, and everything came crashing down. Grandma Bevy wasn’t there to help me through the nadir. I went to her desolate condo, unwrapped one of her leftover butterscotch candies on her night table, and vented to her empty armchair in the back bedroom.

“How am I supposed to do this without you, Grandma? There’s no one to insist I buy jeans without rips in the knees or revel at my new pair of homemade earrings. It doesn’t feel real. It can’t be real.”

I felt like a child in the wrong aisle at the grocery store — lost and desperate to be found. In one ear, I heard the all-too-familiar voice insisting I pillage for pills when my parents were out for dinner that night. In the other, I heard hers, whispering, “The world is not finished with you, sweetheart.”

I never thought I’d make it through that dark and stormy night home alone. I didn’t trust myself.

What felt like a solid foundation mere days ago turned into blaring profanities in my brain. I have a menial job in a field so far left from what I love, my graduate degree was a waste, I am painfully single with zero sex drive, conversing with friends seems daunting, I did get a refill on all of my psych meds today, my mom has that extra-large bottle of Tylenol stashed away. Am I really going there? Again?

Then, I heard my grandmother’s voice: “What about finally taking that trip to Vancouver to visit your friends from university?” The trip had been postponed due to an overdose, a hospitalization and a mixed-mood episode (a strange combination of agitation, despondency and wishful thinking). The suggestion of voyaging out West was a gift from beyond the grave.

While I had globetrotted in my 20s, traveling was something I never thought I’d be able to handle since my bipolar I diagnosis. I was afraid of jetlag affecting my sleep schedule, I didn’t know whether to take my meds on East Coast or West Coast time, and I was worried that the wanderlust of adventure would launch me into a euphoria from which I could not escape.

With some diligence and the help of my friends, I overcame these obstacles over the five-day sojourn. Our usual all-nighters were replaced by charcuterie boards and 10 p.m. bedtimes, we scheduled naps to recharge between activities, and the hosts let me use their dumbbells to blow off early morning steam when I couldn’t adjust to the time difference. I ensured the trip was a success for my Grandma Bevy, to continue to make her proud.

I came back from my time on the Pacific with a goal of being furiously happy—but not too happy—as I neared 31.

While my strict routine was upended and I lost my coffee companion, Grandma Bevy’s voice would always be in my ear; I just had to listen closely. I thought of her when I wanted to give in to my vices, I didn’t want to disappoint her by losing my fitness or my mind, I wanted to make her proud by working for the business founded by her husband. She would continue to help me out of my up-highs and down-lows, even if from a metaphysical distance.

“It doesn’t matter what the world thinks. You know what you need: coffee, exercise, and that undefinable quirkiness that makes you my darling Jenny. None of the rest matters.”

Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch at [email protected].

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Why I Love My Grandmother

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Published: Mar 14, 2024

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Dear Annie: My partner died suddenly without a will and his family took my money and personal papers

• Published: Jul. 09, 2024, 4:17 p.m.

First she lost the man she loved, and now she's lost money and other items that his family took from her. Syda Productions - stock.adobe.com

Dear Annie: I met a wonderful man online in 2010. I moved from Maine to Pennsylvania with him in 2012. He has a nice family, which I grew close to, including a daughter and her small family. In September of last year, he passed away from a heart attack and left no will.        

His family helped me pack up, and they took most of his stuff. Shortly before I moved, his daughter and her husband showed up unannounced to take more things. The day before, I had sold my car and put the money with my personal papers, plus money for the move, into a security box. They took the box and refused to give it back.        

I’ve sought legal help but to no avail. I have been told that this is considered a “domestic” case. This has been a nightmare. It has given me anxiety and loss of sleep. They promised to return my stuff if it was found to be mine. Please, people! Protect your loved ones and make a will! These people live in Pennsylvania, as my partner and I did, but in Pennsylvania our relationship was not considered a common-law marriage because we got together after 2005. -- Heartsick        

Dear Heartsick: I am very sorry for your loss. You can only control what you can control, which is your peace of mind. They already took away your physical things; don’t let them take away your peace. The best revenge when someone has wronged you that badly is to live that well! Focus on getting back to taking care of you. Make sleep a priority, and if your anxiety is really bad, seek the help of a trained professional. Meditation, yoga and exercise can all help with managing anxiety.        

If the money was for your car, and your partner was not involved with the purchase, then you can take them to small claims court to force them to return that money and all the cash that you put into the security box, plus your personal papers, of course.

Dear Annie: I am part of a family that also has a woman renting a room in our house. I have always been extremely sensitive to smells and scents, but this woman’s odors send me gagging out of the room. My son is also sensitive to the smell.        

Now that the weather is getting warmer, the smells are becoming stronger. While she is OK with my occasional request for her to go take a shower, I also don’t want to demand that she shower daily, although that is what is necessary to keep the smells manageable.        

How would you suggest I broach this subject without offending her? -- Sensorily Overloaded        

Dear Sensorily Overloaded: The best way to deal with the stinky housemate is to be honest, kind but firm. Ask her what she thinks is causing the odor? The worst thing you can do is be passive aggressive about it. Instead, investigate together what could be causing the bad odor. You could even have a laugh about it. You might also help her in other areas of her life. For instance, maybe after she cleans up her act, she will be more willing to find a romantic partner.

Send your questions for Annie Lane to [email protected] .

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Alice Munro’s Daughter Andrea Skinner Shares “Terrible Secret” of Stepfather’s Sexual Abuse—and Munro’s Silence

Andrea Robin Skinner , daughter of the late Nobel Prize–winning author Alice Munro , revealed that her stepfather, Gerald Fremlin, sexually assaulted her as a 9-year-old, and that her mother knew about the abuse and chose to stay with him, in an essay for the Toronto Star published Sunday.

The news comes weeks after Munro’s death on May 13, following a flood of remembrances and praise for her incisive prose. Skinner, her two older sisters, and her stepbrother revealed the family secret that has been swept aside and concealed from the public during a nearly 50-year timeline of confessions, threats, estrangements, and trauma. Fremlin sexually assaulted Skinner in 1976, and Skinner told her mother in 1992, after which Munro remained married to Fremlin until his death in 2013.

In 2005, Skinner reported the past abuse to police, using Fremlin’s own threatening letters as evidence. Fremlin pleaded guilty on arraignment without trial to “indecently assaulting” Skinner. Fremlin, then 80, was sentenced to two years of probation, she wrote.

Alice Munro divorced her first husband and Skinner’s father, Jim Munro, in 1972, and Alice married Fremlin in 1976. She lived with Fremlin in Clinton, Ontario, where Skinner would spend summers, living in Victoria, BC with her father during the school year.

It was that first summer of 1976, Skinner wrote, on a night her mother was away, that Fremlin climbed into her bed and touched her and himself while she pretended to sleep. Other times, he’d make inappropriate comments to her, talk to her about his and her mother’s sexual activities, and ask her about her own.

Skinner said she told her stepbrother Andrew about the assault, as well as inappropriate comments and questions from Fremlin, when she returned to the Victoria home they shared with her father, “trying to make a joke of it.”

“He didn’t laugh,” she wrote. “He said I should tell his mother right away. I did, and she told my father, who decided to say nothing to my mother.” Her father never spoke directly to Skinner about it, and he told her two older sisters to not say anything to their mother either. Her older sister Sheila Munro said that she was sent along with Skinner to make sure she wasn’t left alone with Fremlin.

“I don’t remember the exact conversation, but my father told me that Andrea had been molested, or something to that effect,” Sheila said. “There wasn’t a lot of detail about what happened to her.”

Still, on those summer visits, Fremlin would make inappropriate comments and sexual advances. He didn’t touch her again, Skinner said, but he would expose himself when they were alone and sometimes masturbated.

“I thought I was doing a good job of preventing abuse by averting my eyes and ignoring his stories,” she wrote.

Through the years, Skinner suffered debilitating migraines—the first of which struck her the morning after Fremlin’s sexual assault, the one he said her mother couldn’t find out about because “it would kill her,” she wrote—and grappled with bulimia. When she told her mother she was struggling at the University of Toronto, Skinner said that Munro cried and told Skinner she was wasting her life. Finally, in 1992, a 25-year-old Skinner decided to tell her mother, in the form of a letter, what had happened all those years ago.

Initially, upon learning of the assault, Munro left Fremlin, fleeing to a condo in Comox, BC. In her wake, Fremlin found the letter. When Skinner spoke to her mother, she wrote, it seemed that Munro was “overwhelmed by her sense of injury to herself.”

“When I tried to tell her how her husband’s abuse had hurt me, she was incredulous,” Skinner wrote. “‘But you were such a happy child,’ she said.”

One of Skinner’s sisters, Jenny Munro, called the immediate aftermath “chaos and mayhem and hysterical actions all around…But the focus was not on Andrea.”

Instead, there was concern that Fremlin would follow through on threats to kill himself. Then, he sent a series of letters that described the abuse and directly compared Skinner to Vladimir Nabokov’s titular Lolita. He felt “dishonorable and deeply disgusted with myself,” he wrote, but not for assaulting his stepdaughter, which he detailed in the letter, but “for having been unfaithful to Alice after I had committed myself to her,” he wrote. He called Skinner a “home wrecker” and threatened to kill her if the police were contacted. Munro, too, was devastated, but according to Skinner, more focused on her own pain than her daughter’s.

“She reacted exactly as I had feared she would, as if she had learned of an infidelity,” Skinner wrote.

After a few months, Fremlin came to visit Munro, and when he returned to Clinton, Munro went with him.

“She said that she had been ‘told too late,’” Skinner wrote of Munro. “She loved [Fremlin] too much, and that our misogynistic culture was to blame if I expected her to deny her own needs, sacrifice for her children, and make up for the failings of men. She was adamant that whatever had happened was between me and my stepfather. It had nothing to do with her.”

The family continued to have a relationship with Munro and Fremlin, sidestepping the subject at least partly due to Munro’s public profile and what Jenny called “the fame factor. That was a big deal.”

In Skinner’s words, “We all went back to acting as if nothing had happened. It was what we did.”

In 1994, Munro granted a lengthy interview to The Paris Review for the publication’s “The Art of Fiction” series. She admitted to worrying about her children and acknowledged that she’d prioritized writing over motherhood.

“Some part of me was absent for those children, and children detect things like that." she said. "Not that I neglected them, but I wasn’t wholly absorbed. When my oldest daughter was about two, she’d come to where I was sitting at the typewriter, and I would bat her away with one hand and type with the other. I’ve told her that. This was bad because it made her the adversary to what was most important to me. I feel I’ve done everything backwards: this totally driven writer at the time when the kids were little and desperately needed me. And now, when they don’t need me at all, I love them so much. I moon around the house and think, There used to be a lot more family dinners.”

In 2002, however, something changed: Skinner became pregnant with twins, and told her mother that her stepfather could never be allowed to be around the children. A screaming match ensued, with Munro saying it would be “inconvenient,” since Munro didn’t drive. The next day, Munro called Skinner, she said, “to forgive me for talking to her like that ... and I realized that I was dealing with someone who had no clue who needed to be forgiven. And that was the end of our relationship.”

An October 2004 New York Times Magazine profile of Munro , in which she spoke glowingly and frequently of Fremlin, agreeing he was the love of her life, and described herself as having “no moral scruples,” admitted ambivalence as a parent, and said that she was close with her three daughters (including Skinner, no mention of their estrangement) who got together “mostly to discuss me,” was the next catalyst for Skinner: She reported Fremlin’s abuse to the Ontario Provincial Police and gave them the letters he had sent as supporting evidence. In March 2005, he pleaded guilty to one count of indecent assault and received a suspended sentence, and was ordered away from parks, playgrounds, and all contact with Skinner, as well as being ordered to submit a DNA sample for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s database.

Skinner remained estranged from Munro and the rest of her family of origin after the conviction, she wrote. In Munro’s sphere, despite Skinner’s hope that “this story, my story, [would] become part of the stories people tell about my mother,” the conviction didn’t make its way into the media or public eye, and the family danced around the topic.

“The family went back to socializing with the pedophile,” Jenny said. “My mother went on a book tour.”

Fremlin died in 2013, the same year Munro was selected for the Nobel Prize for literature. She was unable to travel to accept the award.

Skinner never reconciled with her mother.

“I made no demands on myself to mend things, or forgive her. I grieved the loss of her, and that was an important part of my healing,” she wrote.

By coming forward with her reality, Skinner is working toward the same goal she stated about reporting Fremlin’s abuse to the authorities in the first place: “I also wanted this story, my story, to become part of the stories people tell about my mother. I never wanted to see another interview, biography, or event that didn’t wrestle with the reality of what had happened to me, and with the fact that my mother, confronted with the truth of what had happened, chose to stay with, and protect, my abuser.”

Now, after Munro’s death, Skinner and her siblings have reconciled. Her children worry about the impact that this will have on her legacy, but the need to air the truth is greater. “I still feel she’s such a great writer—she deserved the Nobel,” Sheila Munro, that eldest daughter whom Munro recalled shooing away from her typewriter, said. “She devoted her life to it, and she manifested this amazing talent and imagination. And that’s all, really, she wanted to do in her life. Get those stories down and get them out.”

Which is also what Skinner wants to achieve now.

“I want so much for my personal story to focus on patterns of silencing, the tendency to do that in families and societies,” she said. “I just really hope that this story isn’t about celebrities behaving badly ... I hope that ... even if someone goes to this story for the entertainment value, they come away with something that applies to their own family.”

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Florida prosecutors knew Epstein raped teenage girls 2 years before cutting deal, transcript shows

FILE - This photo provided by the New York State Sex Offender Registry shows Jeffrey Epstein, March 28, 2017. On Monday, July 1, 2024, Florida Circuit Judge Luis Delgado released the transcripts of a 2006 grand jury investigation that looked into sex trafficking and rape allegations made against Epstein. (New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP, File)

FILE - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at the Palm Beach Police Department, Feb. 29, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla., just before signing a bill to release the transcripts of a 2006 grand jury investigation that looked into sex trafficking and rape allegations made against Jeffrey Epstein. On Monday, July 1, 2024, Florida Circuit Judge Luis Delgado released the grand jury transcripts. (Damon Higgins/The Palm Beach Post via AP, File)

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Florida prosecutors knew the late millionaire and financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually assaulted teenage girls two years before they cut a plea deal that has long been criticized as too lenient and a missed opportunity to imprison him a decade earlier, according to transcripts released Monday.

The 2006 grand jury investigation was the first of many by law enforcement over the past two decades into Epstein’s rape and sex trafficking of teenagers — and how his ties to the rich and the powerful seem to have allowed him to avoid prison or a serious jail term for over a decade.

The investigations uncovered Epstein’s close ties to former President Bill Clinton and Britain’s Prince Andrew , as well as his once friendly relationship with former President Donald Trump and numerous others of wealth and influence who have denied doing anything criminal or improper and not been charged.

Circuit Judge Luis Delgado’s release of approximately 150 pages Monday came as a surprise, since there was scheduled hearing next week over unsealing the graphic testimony. Gov. Ron DeSantis had signed a bill in February allowing the release on Monday or any time thereafter that Delgado ordered. Florida grand jury transcripts are usually kept secret forever, but the bill created an exemption for cases like Epstein’s.

The transcripts show that the grand jury heard testimony that Epstein, who was then in his 40s, had raped teenage girls as young as 14 at his Palm Beach mansion, often paying them so he could commit statutory rape or assault. The teenagers testified and told detectives they were also paid cash or rented cars if they found him more girls.

“The details in the record will be outrageous to decent people,” Delgado wrote in his order. “The testimony taken by the Grand Jury concerns activity ranging from grossly unacceptable to rape — all of the conduct at issue is sexually deviant, disgusting, and criminal.”

In 2008, Epstein cut a deal with South Florida federal prosecutors that allowed him to escape more severe federal charges and instead plead guilty to state charges of procuring a person under 18 for prostitution and solicitation of prostitution. He was sentenced to 1.5 years in the Palm Beach County jail system, during which he was allowed to go to his office almost daily as part of a work-release program, followed by a year of house arrest. He was required to register as a sex offender.

Criticism of the deal resulted in the 2019 resignation of Trump’s labor secretary, Alex Acosta, who was the U.S. attorney for South Florida in 2008 and signed off on the deal. A 2020 Justice Department investigation concluded that Acosta used “poor judgment” in his handling of the Epstein prosecution, but it didn’t rise to the level of professional misconduct.

The chief prosecutor in the Epstein case, former Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer, did not immediately respond Monday to an email and a voicemail seeking comment about the transcripts’ release.

Current Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg, who was not involved in the investigation, said in a statement he is glad the records have been released. He said he has not yet read the transcripts, so could not comment on whether Krischer should have pursued a tougher prosecution of Epstein.

Brad Edwards, an attorney for many of the victims, said in a statement that the transcripts show that Krischer’s office “took the case to the Grand Jury with an agenda — to return minimal, if any, criminal charges against Jeffrey Epstein.”

“A fraction of the evidence was presented, in a misleading way, and the Office portrayed the victims as criminals,” he said. “It is so sad, the number of victims Epstein was able to abuse because the State carried water for him when they had a chance to put him away.”

Epstein’s estate is paying $155 million in restitution to more than 125 victims.

According to the transcripts, Palm Beach Police Detective Joe Recarey testified in July 2006 that the initial investigation began when a woman reported in March 2005 that her stepdaughter who was in high school at the time said she received $300 in exchange for “sexual activity with a man in Palm Beach,” Recarey testified.

Another teenager, whose name was redacted in the transcript, told detectives that she was 17 years old when she was approached by a friend who said she could make $200 by providing a massage at Epstein’s home.

At the house, when Epstein tried touching her, she told him she was uncomfortable. He then told her that he would pay her $200 if she brought “girls” to the house. “And he told her, ‘The younger, the better,’” Recarey said.

Over time she brought six friends to Epstein’s house, including a 14-year-old, and likened herself to Hollywood Madame Heidi Fleiss in October 2005 interviews, Recarey recounted.

When she brought over a 23-year-old friend, Epstein told her that the friend was too old.

“The more you did, the more money you made,” the detective said the teen told him. “She explained that there was going to be a massage or some possible touching, and you would have to provide the massage either topless or naked.”

Another teen testified she visited Epstein’s house hundreds of times in the early 2000s, starting when she was 16. She testified that Epstein paid her $200 each time she gave him a massage while naked, rented her a car and gave her $1,000 the time he raped her.

A 2005 police search of Epstein’s mansion found evidence supporting the girls’ testimony. Also, Epstein’s houseman told detectives that the teenagers who came to the mansion were “very young. Too young to be a masseuse.”

Epstein in 2018 was charged with federal sex trafficking crimes in New York — where he also had a mansion that was a scene of abuse — after the Miami Herald published a series of articles that renewed public attention on the case, including interviews with some victims who had been pursuing civil lawsuits against him. Epstein was 66 when he killed himself in a New York City jail cell in August 2019, federal officials say.

Delgado in his order wrote that the transcripts show why Epstein was “the most infamous pedophile in American history.”

“For almost 20 years, the story of how Jeffrey Epstein victimized some of Palm Beach County’s most vulnerable has been the subject of much anger and has at times diminished the public’s perception of the criminal justice system,” Delgado wrote.

Associated Press reporters Mike Schneider in Orlando, Florida, Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Stephany Matat in West Palm Beach, Florida, Kim Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama, and Sudhin Thanawala in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Mildura Digital Television demise signals critical point for free-to-air regional Australia broadcast services

The Mildura region in Victoria is the first in the nation to lose access to one of the nation's five major free-to-air television channels after the Channel 10 signal was shut down. 

Mildura Digital Television, which is owned by the Seven Network and WIN, cut the signal on July 1 because "it did not make commercial sense" to keep it going.

What's next?

Free TV Australia fears that without urgent action by government, more licence areas are likely to follow. 

Jemma Gibson concedes that her grandmother Jean Dooley, who is in her mid-80s and lives with dementia, is far from being digitally savvy.

But her grandmother has been taught by family members how to surf through channels on her digital television.

"Basic, basic, basic is what she needs," Ms Gibson said.

"She has a routine every morning [to] mark in her TV guide what she wants to watch."

But this week, her grandmother noticed that Channel 10 and affiliate channels such as Bold and Peach were not working.

Fearing her TV had broken down, Ms Dooley called her granddaughter, who explained that Channel 10 programs were no longer available on free-to-air TV in the Mildura region where they both live.

Mildura Digital Television (MDV), which is owned by the Seven Network and WIN, ceased operating the Channel 10 signal on July 1 because it did "not make commercial sense", according to a statement from WIN.

"Over its entire history it has been unprofitable," the statement read.

"Audiences who want to watch TEN content can download the 10 Play app."

Ms Gibson said this did not seem fair for elderly audiences who were not accustomed to new technology and who, in her grandmother's case, did not even have the internet.

"It's meant to be a free-to-air channel," she said.

Cost-shifting to consumers

According to the federal government's latest media and television survey, free-to-air commercial TV consumption continues to decline, with just over half of Australians surveyed saying they watched television in the past week.

Conversely, the number of survey respondents watching content from paid online subscriptions over the same period was 65 per cent. 

Victoria University senior lecturer in screen media Marc C-Scott said a strong, stable internet connection was needed to stream content online.

He said cost-of-living pressure could result in people reviewing their internet and subscription plans.

"We're having financial issues at the moment in terms of affordability," Dr C-Scott said.

"There may be some families looking at basically getting rid of some of their streaming services, but also looking at the plans that they are on for mobile phones or for internet."

Dr C-Scott said not having free-to-air services in regional areas was bad for local audiences, who at times also dealt with patchy internet connection.

"There's been plenty of people complaining about the Kayo stream, and the Stan streams and Optus streams," he said.

"It's not fit for purpose at the moment." 

Fears more signal shutdowns could follow

Free TV Australia chief executive Bridget Fair said regional television was at a critical point.

"Long-term structural measures are now urgently needed to ensure the future viability of regional commercial television services in Australia," she said.

"Without urgent substantive action by government, more licence areas are likely to follow."

Mallee MP Anne Webster told the federal parliament this week that Mildura and the Sunraysia region were "ground zero" for vanishing regional free-to-air television, and many people in her electorate were disappointed with the decision.

"One constituent who rang my office was quite emotional," she said.

"Sunraysia residents are now the first in the country to cease having access to one of the nation's five major television channels."

Senate inquiry to examine broadcasting services

Late last week, the Broadcasting Services Act was amended through the Regional Broadcasting Continuity Bill (RCB ) to allow TV viewers in Mildura to access the government-funded viewer access satellite television (VAST) service.

But households are required to buy a satellite dish and get it professionally installed.

Dr C-Scott said putting satellites on top of people's homes was a reactive approach and there was a bigger problem at hand.

"How can the government make sure that those regional areas are getting the same content and the same viewing experience as Australians in the metro areas?" he said.

Dr Webster said that despite the public interest benefits that Australian commercial broadcasters delivered, they paid high taxes through the commercial broadcasting tax.

"This tax is a significant impost on regional broadcasters' ability to fund content and infrastructure costs," she said in parliament earlier this week.

A senate inquiry will now look into the RCB, with Shadow Communications Minister David Coleman calling for a more affordable solution.

"The government's solution was to pass a special law to allow locals to spend around $800 to connect to a satellite service so they could keep watching one network's programs," he said.

"This is not a great solution for the people of Mildura."

Federal Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has been contacted for comment.

Free-to-air television needs 'major shake-up'

When Mildura resident Ben Dal Farra was young, he loved television programming so much that he would write pretend guides and schedules.

He said that interest had never felt so niche.

"I know the programming that we have today and how different it really is compared to back in the day," he said.

"Digital free-to-air television nowadays is kind of dry because everyone else is way too connected to their streaming sites."

Mr Dal Farra said he streamed television content and so the decision to shut down MDV would not impact him.

"Nowadays I don't really watch it [free-to-air] that much because of Netflix, YouTube, Disney+ — [what] we're all accustomed to," he said.

From his point of view, there needs to be some sort of change.

"Free-to-air television is sort of dying," Mr Dal Farra said.

"Free-to-air television everywhere, as well as in Australia, really needs another major shake-up."

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Who Died in the Tulsa Race Massacre?

After more than a century, researchers hope to finally identify the victims of one of the worst racial attacks in American history.

By Audra D. S. Burch

Audra D.S. Burch writes about race and identity and spent time in Tulsa, Okla., to report on the centennial of the 1921 race massacre and a reparation lawsuit.

Jeanette Batchelor-Young had been tracing her roots for years when she received a message that would change what she knew about her origin story. There were still so many blanks in her family history: Mrs. Batchelor-Young had lived with her father briefly until his death and then she was adopted. She knew the name of his mother and grandmother, but not much more.

The message came from a forensic lab, and it revealed a twist to Mrs. Batchelor-Young’s understanding of her paternal family’s journey from a tiny farming community in Texas to Northern California. Turns out there has been a stop — possibly, a very consequential stop — in Tulsa, Okla., in the 1920s.

Mrs. Batchelor-Young, 64, learned she might be a relative of one of the victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre . Her DNA matched that of remains exhumed from a local cemetery as part of the city’s effort to identify the victims of the massacre through living relatives.

“I have had so many questions about my family on my father’s side,” Mrs. Batchelor-Young said. “I wanted to know more about who and where I come from.”

The massacre, among the most horrific racial attacks in American history, left Tulsa’s Greenwood district, a Black neighborhood, in smoldering ruins. The death toll is estimated between 36 and 300. Many survivors scattered to parts unknown, taking with them clues about who lived and died in the neighborhood.

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Beryl updates: Matagorda County was “hardest hit,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says

Across southeast Texas, residents and officials are assessing the damage and beginning the recovery process.

Matagorda County was "hardest hit" by Beryl, Patrick says

Some 2,500 households in the unincorporated coastal community of Sargent may not have power for another two weeks, Matagorda County Judge Bobby Seiferman said Wednesday during a press briefing about Hurricane Beryl's aftermath.

The hurricane struck the Texas coast early Monday and knocked out power for millions of Texans along the Gulf Coast, greater Houston and in Deep East Texas. Matagorda County was the “hardest hit” of all 121 counties included in the state’s disaster declaration, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said at the briefing.

“And Sargent was the hardest hit of that part, of that county,” he said.

Patrick is serving as acting governor while Gov. Greg Abbott is on an economic development trip in Asia. Since Monday, Patrick has traveled to Houston, Galveston and now Bay City to provide updates on storm recovery. He couldn’t visit Sargent because of the bad weather and there wasn’t a suitable place for his helicopter to land, he said.

Sen. Joan Huffman , a Republican who represents Matagorda County, also attended the briefing and promised to work with local and federal officials to help the county deal with the storm’s aftermath, including restoring power and cleaning up debris.

Matagorda County officials have asked the state to help set up cooling stations, remove debris and get food to residents beyond “ready-to-eat” meals, Patrick said.

“They’ve asked for a lot because there are a lot of issues,” he said. “We are going to do everything we can to check every box that they asked us to check.”

He added that the state will provide additional security personnel to Sargent as well as food, water and ice.

— Pooja Salhotra

Outages make it hard to discharge hospital patients, leading to backups

Several Houston-area hospitals are having trouble making room for new patients because they can’t discharge patients to homes without power, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Tuesday.

“In fact, we had a police officer who was shot in the leg, and when the mayor went down to see him the next day, he still didn’t have a room,” he said.

Patrick, who has served as acting governor amid the storm, said NRG Arena will be converted into a temporary medical step-down facility to free up space in local hospitals. It will have 250 beds available.

Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd said hospitals, physicians and patients will decide who goes to NRG Arena. Any of the regional hospitals can send a patient to the arena, as most of them are in a crisis, he said.

Millions of Texans are still without power after Hurricane Beryl caused regionwide power outages. Kidd said it was in patients’ best interest not to go back to their homes if they don’t have power and they can’t keep their medications refrigerated.

Kidd has also ordered 25 additional ambulances to come to Houston and assist this week.

“The City of Houston told us they had an ambulance shortage because all of their ambulances were in the emergency department waiting to offload patients,” he said. “Some had been sitting there for three-plus hours.”

This isn’t the first time the arena in Houston has been used during a crisis. In 2005, a medical facility was established in what was then known as the Astrodome to treat and shelter Hurricane Katrina evacuees.

— Stephen Simpson

Hurricane Beryl death toll rises to 10

Hurricane Beryl, which brought fierce winds and heavy rains to a large portion of southeastern Texas, killed at least 10 people, according to state and local authorities.

In Harris County, two people waiting out the storm in their homes were killed in separate instances when trees fell on their residences. An Atascocita Fire Department spokesperson said that in the first instance, two people were in a residence when a tree fell, killing one and injuring the other. The second instance saw a 74-year-old grandmother die after a tree fell on her bedroom, according to Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick announced another person, a city of Houston employee, died from drowning in a flooded underpass on July 8. Acting Houston Police Department Chief Larry Satterwhite identified the man in a social media post as 54-year-old HPD information security officer Russell Richardson.

Related Story

Tropical storm beryl: how to get help and help texans.

Updated: July 9, 2024

Harris County also reported two deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning during Beryl, Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd said in a July 9 news conference. Kidd said that during the power outages, people run generators in unsafe places — like in a garage or near windows — allowing carbon monoxide to pool indoors. This can lead to asphyxiation.

In Montgomery County, two died inside a tent in a wooded area, according to a news release from the county’s emergency management office. No additional details surrounding their death were available. A third person, a man in his 40s, died in Montgomery County after a tree fell on him while he was on his tractor, the news release said.

In Galveston County, John Florence, an investigator with the county's Medical Examiner confirmed that 71 year-old Judith Greet died at Crystal Beach, a community in the Bolivar Peninsula. Greet was on oxygen for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a lung disease that blocks airflow and makes it difficult to breathe. When the hurricane knocked out power in her RV home, Greet’s oxygen machine ran out of battery and she died.

In Matagorda County, where thousands are still without power , county officials reported that one person died from heat.

The Houston Chronicle reported that a tenth person died in a house fire caused by lightning. Houston fire officials told The Texas Tribune that the cause is under investigation.

— Pooja Salhotra, Stephen Simpson, Dante Motley and Alejandra Martinez

Power restoration could take days and summer temperatures are rising

Millions of Texans are heading into a third summer day without power after Hurricane Beryl wreaked havoc through several counties — including the state’s most populous one — and temperatures rose dangerously into the 90s. The heat index is projected to push past 100 degrees in some areas, compounding the risk for an already battered and worn-out area.

Power companies have deployed thousands of workers to restore power while state and local officials navigate residents’ frustrations at what’s becoming routine in Texas: massive power outages after winter storms, thunderstorms, tornadoes or hurricanes.

Millions of Texans face third day without power in summer heat

Updated: 4 hours ago

As of 6:22 p.m. Tuesday, 1.9 million electricity customers concentrated in the southeastern corner of the state that bore the brunt of Beryl’s fierce winds still didn’t have electricity. Power companies and elected officials said it could be days before everyone has electricity again, meaning people without air conditioning would have to figure out how to cope with the heat.

“The power system is a life saving critical infrastructure — it’s the difference between life and death,” said Costa Samaras, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. “The era of nobody could have foreseen these conditions is over.”

Utility officials and state leaders have said it will likely take days to get everyone’s electricity back on — and temperatures are projected to rise steadily over the next week, National Weather Service Meteorologist Ryan Knapp said.

Temperatures in the 80s and 90s can create unsafe conditions for high-risk individuals, especially in a home with no power, and finding ways to keep cool will be paramount, he said.

“The upper 80s can obviously heat the inside of the home pretty quickly,” Knapp said.

— Pooja Salhotra, Jess Huff, Emily Foxhall and Kayla Gao

Federal disaster declaration approved, Patrick says

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said President Joe Biden approved a Federal Emergency Disaster Declaration to aid Texans in the recovery from Hurricane Beryl. Following a phone call with Biden Tuesday, Patrick stated that he requested FEMA assistance to cover costs for debris removal and emergency protective measures.

“We are appreciative that the federal government will step in and they will pick up most of the cost as we go through recovery of the storm,” Patrick said at a Tuesday press briefing.

Biden says Texas officials delayed request for Beryl federal aid

Once the declaration is finalized and issued, the state’s homeowners and business will be able to access loans and grants to help with Beryl-related recovery costs. FEMA’s public assistance program is divided into categories. Part A covers the costs of debris removal, while part B covers emergency protective measures like medical care, transportation and evacuation. Patrick said the federal government would be covering “most of the cost” associated with storm recovery.

The declaration includes 121 impacted counties, Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd said. Those counties include Brazoria, Galveston and Harris.

Kidd urged residents to adhere to local government regulations if they start doing their own debris cleanup.

Debris will need to be separated into three categories. Vegetative debris includes leaves and plants; construction and demolition debris includes building materials; appliances and white goods are another category.

“Please don’t put it all into one pile,” Kidd said. “It only slows the recovery process.”

On Monday, Biden spoke with Houston Mayor John Whitmire and said his administration is committed to supporting Texas, a White House spokesperson said.

“The U.S. Coast Guard and FEMA are on the ground and stand ready to support local response efforts,” the spokesperson said. “They will remain with the people of Texas every step of the way.”

–Alejandra Martinez and Pooja Salhotra

Texans begin to assess damage and plan clean-up efforts after bruising storm

Hurricane Beryl plowed through the Houston region Monday and, according to local meteorologist Matt Lanza, keeping up hurricane strength until it got halfway across town. Only in the afternoon would the winds die down completely, allowing people to emerge to follow a routine many know well: assess the damage, check on others, clean up and wait for the power to return.

The storm jolted people awake as its winds roared, blowing at 90 miles per hour, pushing tree branches at windows and ripping shingles from rooftops. Ten to 15 inches of rain pounded homes, according to Houston Mayor John Whitmire.

“Just my luck”: Houston begins clean up after Beryl rips through Gulf Coast

July 9, 2024

The wind sounded to 31-year-old Elizabeth Alvarez in Houston like someone screaming. The mother of six woke up at 4 a.m., scared, and didn’t go back to sleep. She thought her window might break. She lost power and — hour by hour — more Houstonians did too, their air conditioning and refrigerated food going along with it.

Later, Alvarez would drag her pet birds in their cages onto her porch to feel the cooler air, while neighbors grilled corn and pork and others kicked a soccer ball. She would clutch a handheld, battery-powered fan, that was turned off to save for when she needed it.

Across the region, fences toppled. Awnings ripped from restaurants. Signs soared away from businesses. Traffic lights twisted askew. A local television station lost power and went off the air. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said on The Weather Channel, “Really, Houston is getting the brunt of the wind and the rain.”

The pops of transformers echoed. Entire trees crashed down.

And the damage pushed on from there, as Beryl uprooted trees and downed power lines into southeast Texas. In Liberty, a beloved pecan tree outside the historic courthouse was uprooted early on Monday, according to Bluebonnet News . The tree served as a meeting place for generations of residents.

“The rebuild is going to be significant. There was real damage. But the good news is for Houston, this ain’t our first rodeo,” U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz said at a Monday evening press conference.

— Emily Foxhall

How to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning from generators during power outages

When electrical power is knocked out after a hurricane, carbon monoxide poisoning from improperly used gas-powered generators is especially dangerous. The odorless, colorless gas is called an “invisible killer.” Early symptoms can include headache, dizziness, weakness and nausea, similar to the flu. To stay safe, experts recommend never connecting a generator directly to your home’s wiring, ensuring it's properly grounded, and always operate it outdoors away from windows and vents.

— Alejandra Martinez

What should I do after a hurricane hits?

Stay away from flood waters and damaged power lines. Don’t enter damaged buildings. Take photos and document damages to your home or property. Residents are also encouraged to document their storm damages and losses through a state-run online survey to help state officials understand the extent of the damages.

Organizations like the American Red Cross, Salvation Army and local volunteer organizations can help you find food, shelter and supplies, as well as even assist you with clean-up efforts.

How to navigate FEMA during this year’s hurricane season

Updated: 11 hours ago

Government and community resources may be available to help with recovery. Disaster declarations from the governor and president may free up federal funds for recovery assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency . People cannot receive disaster aid and insurance assistance for the same damages, so insured Texans should file claims through their existing policies before applying for FEMA assistance.

— Maria Probert Hermosillo and Pooja Salhotra

Tornadoes pop up in East Texas after Beryl downgraded to a Tropical Storm

After downing trees and power lines across the Greater Houston area, Hurricane Beryl has been downgraded to a Tropical Storm, meaning wind speeds have lowered below 75 miles per hour.

Maximum sustained winds have decreased to about 60 miles per hour, a 1 p.m. advisory from the National Hurricane Center. Beryl is headed northeastward at about 14 miles per hour and is expected to increase in speed as it continues to move through East Texas, where some local officials asked residents to shelter in place.

The National Weather Service out of Shreveport is tracking three confirmed tornadoes on radar, two in Texas and the third in Louisiana. The first is south of Joaquin, which is north of Lufkin and near the Louisiana border, the second is north of Timpson, which is also near the border.

Forecasters urged Texans to use caution amid downed power lines and warned that improper generator use can cause carbon monoxide poisoning.

On the Texas coastline, a storm surge warning is still in effect north of San Luis Pass to Sabine Pass, an area that includes Galveston Bay. The tropical storm warning was discontinued from Port O’Conner to San Luis Pass.

The Coastal Bend, including areas like Corpus Christi, was spared from the brunt of the storm.

— Pooja Salhotra and Jess Huff

High winds persist into East Texas, prompting requests for residents to shelter in place

High winds have made their way north from the Texas coast into East Texas and counties have begun to ask residents to shelter in place as a way to keep emergency vehicles off the roads as well.

The storm kept up its momentum as a Category 1 hurricane all the way to Interstate 10, surprising meteorologist Matt Lanza at Space City Weather.

“The widespread wind gusts of 75 to 85 mph so far inland was really unnerving,” he wrote in an updated blog post.

Residents of San Jacinto, Liberty, Hardin and Tyler counties have been encouraged to shelter in place, especially to stay off the roads in an effort to also keep emergency vehicles off the road.

News outlets and emergency management teams throughout the region have reported downed power lines and trees throughout the region.

The National Weather Service issued a tornado watch until 10 p.m. Monday for counties between Montgomery and Texarkana counties, as well as Northwest and North Central Louisiana and Southern Arkansas. A wind advisory is in effect until Tuesday morning.

— Jess Huff

Storm passes over Lake Livingston Dam, which was inundated with rain in April

In Polk County, which is home to the Lake Livingston Dam, the storm began to peak around 11 a.m. with the worst of it located over the dam, according to Polk County Emergency Management. High winds are still top of mind, even as Beryl has been downgraded to a tropical storm.

The dam, which recently reported potential failures, was releasing 21,175 cubic feet of water per second as of 11 a.m. and the lake level is at 130.93 feet above sea level.

This is significantly less than the several hundred thousand cubic feet of water released in April, when storms required several hundred thousand cubic feet of water per second to be released for multiple days in a row.

The Trinity River Authority, in conjunction with the Federal Aviation Authority, initiated a temporary flight restriction over the dam as the authority also began construction to mitigate potential failures early Monday.

Houston officials ask residents to remain off roads as damage assessment begins

Downed tree limbs and power lines, flooded streets, and power outages have Houston officials pleading with residents to stay home.

Houston mayor John Whitmire held a news conference Monday detailing the dire situation the city finds itself in as it took the brunt of Hurricane Beryl.

“We are dealing with a very serious amount of water. Around 10 inches of rain across the city and 90-mile-per-hour winds and hurricane conditions,” Whitmire said. “Please, Houstonians, shelter in place. We are in emergency and rescue mode.”

Whitmire said over 700,000 Houston electricity customers are currently without power, and the region’s two major airports are not open. However, city officials should better understand the situation now that the storm is moving away.

“We are experiencing the dirty side of a dirty storm,” Whitmire said.

The storm's sustained winds were still at 70 miles per hour as it moved from the Gulf Coast into the Houston area. The National Hurricane Center said that up to 10 inches of rain could fall in some places — and some isolated areas of the state may receive 15 inches. Some areas of Houston have already received nearly 10 inches of rainfall, according to data from the Harris County Flood Control District. On Monday morning, local officials in the Houston area said the storm had downed trees and caused street flooding. At least two people died when trees fell onto their residences.

In Rosenberg, a city 35 miles southwest of Houston, a downed tree hit a high water rescue vehicle returning from a rescue, police said on X . Officials there also urged residents to stay off roadways.

Houston Fire Department Chief Samuel Pena underscored the strain on resources due to the high demand for high-water rescues and live wire calls. These are currently the primary service requests, consuming a significant portion of their resources, and they have already helped eight people in high-water rescues.

“Earlier today, we saw a video of a high-water rescue , and you can see how resource-intensive those call types are. We can’t keep using those resources. Please be cautious and heed the warnings,” Pena said.

— Stephen Simpson, Pooja Salhotra and Emily Foxhall

Refineries begin reporting storm-related air pollution

Some refineries along the Texas coast have shut down due to Hurricane Beryl and are self-reporting instances of “unintentional” emissions.

In one instance, Freeport LNG, a large natural gas terminal on the coast of Brazoria County, reported releases of over 8,000 pounds of unplanned air pollution on Sunday. Pollutants included ethylene , a chemical with a faint sweet and musky odor, that can cause headache, dizziness, fatigue, and lightheadedness if people are exposed to it in large amounts overtime.

In their report to the state, the company wrote the facility was proactively shutting down before the hurricane winds caused power outages.

“[The shutdown] resulted in a subsequent unavoidable venting,” the report said.

Flaring, a process for burning unwanted gas to relieve pressure or clear pipes, usually happens before or during extreme weather events, said Luke Metzger, executive director of the nonprofit Environment Texas.

The Marathon Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas City, along the Houston Ship Channel, tweeted the facility was flaring Monday morning due to a brief power disruption during the storm. No report has been submitted to the state yet.

Metzger said Beryl’s pollution events are low compared to Hurricane Harvey’s 8.3 million pounds of air pollution reported to the state, but suspects more facilities will submit reports after the storm’s passing.

“I was surprised looking at the pollution reports that there has been relatively little pollution reported,” Metzger said. “That’s either good news because the storm had less of an impact [on refineries] or facilities [operators] have learned their lesson.”

Beryl makes landfall in Texas as Category 1 hurricane

Hurricane Beryl made landfall near Matagorda around 4 a.m. Monday as a Category 1 Hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center. The storm strengthened through Sunday evening and had maximum sustained winds of 80 miles per hour when it came ashore. A 5 a.m. advisory from the National Hurricane Center warned about life-threatening storm surge and inland flooding Monday.

Hundreds of thousands of Texans are without power , including many in coastline counties such as Brazoria and Matagorda, according to PowerOutage.us. The full scope of the storm's damage is not yet clear — and it could cause more Monday as it moves northeast through the state.

The hurricane center said the coast was experiencing life-threatening storm surge. It also warned of flash floods throughout the southeastern portion of the state as the storm continues moving inland, bringing five to 10 inches of rain to some areas — or up to 15 inches in some isolated places.

Category 1 storms primarily damage unanchored mobile homes, shrubbery and trees. They can also do extensive damage to electricity lines and cause power outages that last several days.

Disclosure: CenterPoint Energy has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here .

Maria Probert Hermosillo , Berenice Garcia and Emily Foxhall contributed to this report.

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Information about the authors

Pooja Salhotra

General assignment reporter.

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@PoojaSalhotra

Stephen Simpson

Mental health reporter.

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@Steve55Simpson

Alejandra Martinez

Environmental reporter.

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@alereports

East Texas Reporter

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@JessHuff16

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Contributors

Maria Probert Hermosillo

Berenice Garcia

Rio grande valley reporter.

[email protected]

@berenice__g

Emily Foxhall

Climate reporter.

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