Chapter Three: That Moment

"A moment can change everything;" what exactly does this mean? A moment in time changes everything in time, your view on everything that's happened; or yet to happen.. or does it mean events in the future are now changed because of this one event in this one moment. Doesn't every moment of your life change something about the next... what makes one moment more significant than the rest...?

This statement, cliche, saying, whatever you would like to refer to it as means to me, that at one point in time, there is or can be a moment that changes everything about your life. Your views, goals, dreams, ambitions, are all affected by this one moment. It can be as simple as failing an entrance exam, getting rejected by someone you care about, getting rejected by a school or possibly a coach, or something as big as the birth f your child, niece or nephew, or in my case the sudden death of someone you never thought you would loose...I can narrow that moment of my life down to one hour. It changed my whole life.

There are no words to describe my grandpa, he was a southern baptist preacher, farmer, hard working, hard headed son of a gun who had to have everything his way. He raised the Minix family to keep close ties, no one lived more than 15 miles from each other, 14 to be exact, and may God be with us if we decided to move farther than that! The values that he instilled in myself, my sisters, my cousins, aunts and uncles can't be described in some blog. Right down to our core we are about our family through and through, we believe that hard work and dedication gets us places, and that everyone needs to pitch in and help out when things get tough. I can still hear him whistling church hymns, yelling at my driving skills, and the way he would order me three hamburgers at Wendy's because he didn't think I was eating enough...these are the memories I treasure...

I remember it like it was yesterday, my sister and I had went to the cafeteria in the hospital to grab a bite to eat and catch up on some of our current events. She just had to tell me about the guy she was seeing named Steve (he's now her husband :) ), so we left my grandpa's room while grandma was still there keeping him company. At the time he was in a recovery for a triple bypass surgery, scheduled to go home two days later. Things were looking up!! When we got off the elevator and walked through the double doors to see nurses scrambling around, in and out of his room, machines I've never seen before, my grandma in the corner chair being comforted by a nurse I instantly feared the worse. From then on all I remember is someone telling me we should probably call in the members of the family and that it wasn't going to be much longer, and that they have tried all they could, pastoral services were called in and as quick as I could I called each and every member of our family. I was on the phone with my older cousin Sarah when they told us he was gone.

That is the moment, told in one simple paragraph, that's the moment everything changed. That summer I spent every single free second I had staying with my grandma, helping her with her garden, helping her cook, sitting in the silence sometimes just so she didn't have to be alone. Fifty- five years with someone, once they're gone the silence can be deafening. After loosing him, I realized that the people that were in my life were selfish people that I had no time for, they and by they I mean my ex. He couldn't understand why I spent so much time with my grandma, so the first thing that moment changed was, I did away with the boyfriend. Ain't no one got time for that!

After a few months and school started back up, I needed out, needed a change. I was feeling too tied down, and now that the one person who was disapprove of my moving away was gone, and although I would miss my grandma dearly, I felt like I needed to move, a new adventure, to find out who I was. It was sometime in I believe October/ early November that I received the e-mail from Disney. NOW ACCEPTING COLLEGE PROGRAM APPLICATIONS... whats this? I clicked, read, liked, applied... and waited...

Because of that one moment that caused me to finally take a risk, a chance at leaving the only town I ever knew, from that moment comes the next thing that changed everything...

 Dear Kayla,

Congratulations! You have been accepted to the Disney College Program.