In the end, there is always a person I will love unconditionally and for all eternity.

My aunt.

She is like a mother to me, the greatest woman with the biggest heart on earth. She cared for and loved me when no one else did for the most untarnished years of my life: childhood. And she still does.

It makes me very sad. I have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach; the sort of feeling you could relate to as a child when you were caught by your parents in the act of doing something ostensibly bad.

Just yesterday she looked so sad, so weary and beaten from seeing how terribly I was doing in school. If there is anyone who could ever sway me from any resolution I make, she would be the only one. One glance at her teary eyes made me guiltier than I had ever felt before; so guilty I could not look her in the eyes.

When she dropped me home and drove off, I stood at the doorway of my house. Guilty, guilty, guilty. Even though I am indignant and relentless and unwilling to compromise my dreams, it pains me beyond words when the person I love the most suffers from my own selfishness. But while I will not yield to anyone, not even this great woman, I still respect and love her more than anything or anyone on this earth.

If there is anyone worth dying for, it would be her.

She lives by herself. She has no children. She is growing older and older, wearier and wearier, and clumsier and clumsier as the years go by. I can see prominent white in her hair, her hands wrinkled and more worn than crumpled paper, the limp that constantly plagues her.

I am always worried about her. Sometimes she can't remember how many high blood pressure pills she has taken. Sometimes she forgets how to go home. Sometimes she slips and falls. Just recently she slipped on water on the kitchen floor. I was there, and I watched in the utmost horror, seeing the whole incident unfold right before me. The scene drove a stake into my heart. She was a broken heap on the floor, clutching her knee in agony. My blood turned cold.

She called me just now at 8:30 p.m. Her voice was strangled. She said that her ear hurt intensely, as well as her jaw. Ear-splitting pain is the best way to put it, I suppose. But the pain in her voice really drove home. She didn't know what was wrong, so she asked me to research the possible problem since she can't really use a computer. It is only in these times that I would ever wish to be a doctor.

When I was a little more religious; before I abolished the notion of a so-called "religion," I always prayed every night for one thing, and one thing only. It would be the same verse every night:

"Dear Heavenly Father. Please let my aunt and all my loved ones be happy and safe for all their lives."

Whether there is a heavenly deity or not, I still pray for the same--now more than ever.