By Kirby C.
My mother passed away September 21, 2005. She had been diagnosed with cancer in February but did not let our family know until mid-April. Those five months when she was in the hospital were painfully tough. I would spend every day in the hospital visiting and helping my mother. It was hard to see her losing weight and her hair, and to see her become increasingly tired as the radiation and chemotherapy treatments increased. A week before she died, she was on a constant morphine drip and was not moving or talking, and she could only breathe with the help of a machine. Prior to her receiving the morphine drip, I would walk into the room to visit her, and she wouldn’t recognize or acknowledge me at all. When the day came that my father told me it was my time to say goodbye, I was nervous, sad and scared. I wasn’t sure how I was going to react if she could not respond to me. My grandmother, uncle and father went to see her before me, and she didn’t respond to any of them. Finally, I went in and sat in the chair next to her bed. I started to apologize for the way I treated her and I told her how much I loved her. I stopped mid-sentence and started to cry out of frustration since she couldn’t hear me. Then, she reached out and grabbed my hand. She looked at me and said, “I love you so much. You’re the best daughter I could have ever had.” Before I could respond, she let go of my hand and closed her eyes. The rest of my family went in to see her over the next two days, but I was the only one she talked to. She died two days later. My mother’s death has been the most significant event in my life; it has impacted my thoughts, views, opinions and relationships. I grew closer to my father and became much more appreciative of him. Since arriving at The Family Foundation School, I have become much more open to sharing my experiences with others. Many of the students at this school have experienced loss at some point in their life, whether big or small. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I use my mother’s death as a way to relate to others. My mother is watching me from heaven, and I can feel her love and support every day.
