- At that point it had gone to ber brain
and I didn't realize how quickly it was gonna be from there.
And we had sat down and had a conversation
and she was telling me about how she might have
a lot less time than what we had originally thought.
(soft music)
And the first thing I said was,
"Well, will you be there when I graduate college?"
That was six years from the time in which we were talking
and I remember she was like, "No that's not..."
And I could see that I wasn't getting it.
- What was weird is when he was sick
I almost wouldn't, I tried not to see him much
because I was like, you're fine.
And it wasn't until like the very end
that you know I was like, oh my goodness, what did I.
That was my period of denial.
- But I didn't want to say the truth out loud.
And so I kept coming back to her with some other points
like what about at high school graduation,
at this time I think I was a sophomore and she'd said no.
And then it began to hit.
And I feel like even at 15, I still wasn't really grasping.
- There's nothing that she wouldn't do for us.
Including holding on for eight years of being in pain
with breast cancer and it metastasized
to other parts of her body and weird things happened
but she just held on 'cause she didn't want to leave us.
- She had breast cancer and it kinda came up
pretty sudden for us.
And then just over the years it got better, it got worse,
it got better, it got worse and then eventually
just a few months of bad just getting terrible.
- I remember I'd said to her what about my birthday
which was in October and we were in June talking
and she said that she wasn't sure.
And what had happened was she wound up passing away
two weeks before my 16th birthday.
- Eight years is a long time for,
to not know if someone's gonna be alive
when you're gonna get home from school.
- I kind of ignored all the signs.
I knew she was sick.
She was in the hospital for a handful of months,
maybe four or five months.
And then she got out of the hospital and she came home
and it was wonderful to have her back home.
And then something just happened
and she just went right back into the hospital
for then about a month after that.
And at the end of that month, she did pass away.
- The night before he passed he was at the hospital
and he sat down and gave me some words of wisdom about life.
Almost like he knew.
And almost like I knew.
And we didn't say much and I went home.
And I remember when I got a call at 5:18
and it was really, and then I knew.
- There were moments in time I remember
in the beginning of my journey
where I kind of gave into being dark
and gave into being depressed and almost was like
I felt like the way that I handled it
was I know the depression is coming,
I know the anger is coming, so I'm gonna take control of it,
what I thought was taking control of it, and make it worse.
- I did feel very sad
and I just lost somebody very important to me.
And it kind of manifested itself into this selfish nature
where the little kid in me was like,
why me, why did my mom have to die?
It didn't make any sense.
- I often wish I could just ask my mom
for advice on regular everyday things,
relationships, emotions, I wish my mom could meet my dog.
Yeah, just life.
I wish I could ask my mom about life.
- When we lost my dad recognizing that my sisters and my mom
we all grieve at a different pace.
And I think what's interesting about loss
is it makes all of us really vulnerable.
The person who's lost,
the people who are trying to support the person
that lost something vulnerable.
And I think if we don't come at it with a lot of grace
for each other, relationships could go bad.
- I wish that I had spoken up sooner,
just said something to literally anyone.
I can't count the countless hours in which I spent alone
because I chose to do so.
And I didn't have to.
Now, I'll have casual conversations
and I'll be like, oh my gosh,
my mom and I used to do that all the time.
And it will be so second nature because I'm healing
and because I like talking about her
and because I like sharing.
- I do talk to my mom still, very openly,
we have a open dialog, every night before bed,
kind of therapeutically I go through my day.
Because when she was alive
all she wanted to hear about was my day.
And so it's kind of a way for me to reflect on my life
as well as still kind of have that connection
that we had when she was alive.