Grace C
Photography by Julia Stanisci
If you’re reading this, you are stronger than your fears.
I was really hesitant about writing this. It felt uncomfortably exposing to reveal my life struggles for anyone to read. But if it resonates with just one person, it will be worth it. I can never really find the right words to describe how I feel so I thought I would tell it in a story:
When I was in 5th grade my mom sat me down and told me that she was diagnosed with colon cancer. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was given only one year to live. Cancer was a scary word to a 5th grader. I remember going to sleep that night and I couldn’t stop crying. I kept on imagining life without my mom and it was the scariest, most gut-wrenching feeling that wouldn’t leave the back of my mind. That night I discovered my life’s biggest fear: my mom dying of cancer.
When I was in 10th grade my mom sat me down and told me that the chemotherapy treatments stopped working. She only had a few more months to live. The thing I had been fearing every day for five years was actually coming true. Hearing those words made me numb. I felt my body go on autopilot. For the next few months, I went through the motions of life without actually feeling like I was living. I went to school every day and tried to forget that my mom was bedridden at home. I would go days without seeing her because it hurt too much to see her so sick. There are simply no words to describe the agony of watching the person who gave you life slowly lose their own. I didn’t even tell my friends the extremities of the situation because I didn’t want to admit to myself that it was true. It’s a weird feeling to know that someone you love is going to die. It’s like grieving over an event before it actually happens and constantly worrying about when it will happen.
On December 26, 2015, my mom passed away. Nobody ever talks about this, but there is a sense of relief when the person you love no longer has to suffer. My autopilot kicked into overdrive as I tried to navigate life after losing my best friend. I went straight back into my normal routine. At school, I acted like I was perfectly okay. I was trying to convince myself that I wasn’t torn to pieces over her death. But in reality, I would come home every night and feel a cold emptiness in the house without her. I didn’t speak about her death to anyone, not my friends or my family, because it hurt too much to bring her up. I bottled up every ounce of sadness and hid it deep inside me so no one would see. It was to the point that I even felt guilty to be sad about her. In the years following, every time December came I experienced panic attacks and recurring nightmares to the point where nothing would be able to calm me down.
The summer before my junior year of college it had been over four years since my mom died and I still had not talked to anyone about the situation. I wanted to be strong enough to get over it myself. But I think my bottle finally broke and I couldn’t contain the way I was feeling anymore. I became depressed about my life going on without her. I stopped eating, stopped doing the activities that used to give me joy, stopped actively engaging in my life because I saw no hope of having a happy future. It was around this time that my brother became worried about my new habits and suggested that I go to a professional.
It was then when I found a support group on campus for people who have lost a loved one. That small support group single-handedly changed my life. For the first time since my mom’s death, I didn’t feel alone in my suffering. It showed me that there are others, even on this campus, who have been through similar events and can relate to the types of feelings I have. Leaning on others for support has helped me grow through my grief in ways I didn’t know were possible. The hardest part was taking the initiative to admit that I needed help. But I’m not here to tell you that life is going to be perfect once you start speaking about the things that hurt you because that would be a lie. There are still mornings when I wake up feeling as raw and broken as the day she died. I don’t think there will ever be a point in time when that pain goes away. But I’ve learned that people are way more resilient than we give ourselves credit for. I’ve learned to live through my greatest fear and at least now I know I don’t have to go through it alone.
I think it’s important to acknowledge that grief isn’t just about losing people we love. We can grieve lost friendships, relationships, endings to literally anything in life. For whatever it is that you are missing, know that you don’t have to suffer alone. Talking about the hard conversations frees us from the heavy weight it holds inside.
Grace C., Villanova University
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