Diabetes. Cancer. Heart disease. They sounded like dirty words to me when I was a kid, when I didn't understand what they meant. Now that I'm older, and I do understand them, they're even worse. My grandmother died of breast cancer. My grandfather died of lung cancer. My great-grandmother died of heart disease. All of it happened when I was little and I didn't know what was going on. I didn't understand the concept of death and dying. I didn't understand that they were never coming back.

My mom was recently diagnosed with type two diabetes. It's the one that's not insulin dependent, but it has the possibility to become type one, life-threatening. My mom has never been the most healthy of people. She's been overweight for most of her life. She's had high blood pressure, and battled depression. But, when I was young, I thought my mom was ageless, a superhero. Now that I'm older, I understand that she's not.

I'm terrified of death. It's a usual thing with kids my age. We're all young and invincible. We can do anything, say anything, be anything and not worry about a thing, because we're too young to die. Only old people die, right? Wrong. Kids can get cancer. Kids can get diabetes. Kids can get heart disease. Kids can die, just like anyone else. I haven't learned it the hard way yet, and I consider myself lucky for that. But I'm not a kid anymore. I know that people can and will die in my life. I just have to figure out how to handle it.