It does get better. I know life is tough. People are sometimes angry and disrespectful.

You feel that life won’t get any better. People crumble. Children shoot children and commit suicide because life has become too tough or use drugs to escape reality.

I understand where people are coming from. I’ve been there too, and I’m telling you, times get better. You could be worse off. You could have the life my uncle had.

As I was growing up, there was always one person I looked up to. He had a heart the size of 10 and was the most interesting person with whom I have ever had a conversation.

He is the one person I will always look up to. Not because he was a great athlete or had a million-dollar job, but because he was the most caring person I have ever known. He died just this last Christmas.

He had a short life, only living 32 years. He had a little known syndrome called Cockayne syndrome. It is a rare disorder characterized by dwarfism associated with premature aging. In other words, his body grew faster than his mind. His body didn’t fully form.

He was extremely underweight and shorter than average, but that didn’t stop him from loving life.

His speech was slightly impaired and he was soon legally blind. Death was imminent after 10 to 20 years of life with this syndrome.

So, as you can tell, he had a very bleak future ahead of him.

Through his life, he laughed and smiled with us all.

Every night, he told everyone in the house, stranger or family, good night and that he loved them before he went to bed.

He would show off his muscles that he had been working on with five-pound barbells.

I would try to hide from him, making him think that I was scared of his “gigantic” muscles and he would giggle and give me a hug.

Through the years, I always took it for granted that he would be there in my life. He graduated high school (which no one with this syndrome has done before), but he never could go to college.

He always wanted to become an astronaut and work for NASA.

He cut out articles about the launches from newspapers and magazines every day, knowing that he could never do what he dreamed.

He lived a very full life until his sight began to fade. Then his kidneys gave out.

He was on dialysis for about a year, knowing that this was the end. But even through that, he still hung in there and smiled for us.

He was not ready to go, but his little body just gave out.

For our Christmas present this last year, he left us and let us know that he was not in pain anymore.

Many times, he told me he would give anything for a new body so he could keep living.

He didn’t understand why people gave up their lives when they had so much in their future to look forward to.

He couldn’t marry, couldn’t have children. He didn’t have the brightest future, but I will always admire him for how he made the best out of it by loving people.

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Angela Nystrom

Junior

Electrical engineering