The world seems to stand still when you are told. A feeling overcomes you, one that you have never experienced before, that feeling of loss. When I was in college pursuing my bachelors degree , I lost my grandfather. My grandfather and I were very close and my grandparents helped raise my sister and I when we were growing up. Coming from a somewhat orthodox Jewish family, we were close. Family was everything after God and our Jewish religion. I distinctly remember how grandpa would make us laugh every Friday evening at Shabbat dinner. He was our sounding system , the glue that held us all together, the patriarch of the family. One evening , we got a call from our grandmother that papa was sick and in the hospital, at the time we thought nothing of it and that he would be fine in a matter of days. Consequently, this is where and when everything changed. The day we lost our patriarch and the head of our family. Grandma had called with the news that papa had passed away due to pneumonia. I could see my moms face it resembled a ghost, nothing was behind her eyes, just emptiness as she heads my grandmother tell her those words over the phone, dad is gone…. My heart sank I could see my mothers face and hear my grandmothers words. The person who had supported, cared, and listened to me, pushed me to everything I was and accomplished thus far in life , ripped away in an instant. Everything in the moment was silent , I sat their at the kitchen table staring at my mother, unable to think or move past this moment. Time had eventually passed since we lost my grandfather. Though everything seemed to stand still inside of us, life kept moving forward whether we wanted it to or not, the days kept passing. It was time for me to enroll in my second semester of undergraduate school, I was pursuing my bachelors in hopes of becoming a teacher. I felt lost, confused, I did not want to continue school in a world without my grandfather, until this day. I was sitting outside a coffee shop that my grandfather and I used to love to drink coffee at and talk for hours. I was in my car when I saw two blue jay birds land on the fence right outside the coffee shop, this was my grandpa and I’s favorite bird, I remember as a child we would sit outside his garden and feed the blue jays peanuts and laugh. Seeing this changed everything. It felt like a sign, it felt like my grandpa was telling me to not give up. He was telling me to pursue my dreams and pursue my education even if he wasn’t their to see it. I felt a sense of overwhelming joy in that moment as tears poured from my eyes. To this day when I feel scared or feel I am not enough, as if I can not do something or achieve , I think of this day, when I saw the two blue jays sitting on that fence outside that coffee shop. I hear my grandfathers strong and loving voice telling me that I can do anything I set my mind too. This is why I know I can now pursue my graduate degree , because of him and his example in my life, his message to never give up….