My life starts for you in elementary school I was believe it or not the most popular kid in my grade. Up until the 3rd grade that is. When two particular girls came to my school and took everything. When your like 9 that is devastating. I can remember coming home, telling my mom and crying my eyes out. I think back on it now and say how childish, at the time I didn’t know what a blessing that was. I was angry with God for that for a little while, because at the time for several months I really didn’t have any friends. At least, until a girl named Tatom. She came from Cahokia and we because really good friends is just a day. I still talk to her to this day. She changed my world. I had a little issue with the school and religion. I attended a private school for kindergarten. There we would pray over every meal. When I got to elementary school no one told me that I wasn’t allowed to pray over my meals...that was my first trip to the principal’s office. Not one of my finer moments. This act turned me off of God until middle school. I learned my lesson and kept God out of school.
When middle school came along, all of the schools in my district converged except for the private schools. Tatom and my friends from elementary school once again dumped me. That was horrible to experience that not only once but a second time. Im sure that you can imagine my beef with God at this point. But looking at it now there was a reason why He took them away from my life, and for that I am happy. I made so many new friends after that. I had a new best friend named Abbey. We spent every day of three years together, going to church, sharing our beliefs, happiness, and sorrow. We were inseparable. Nothing in the world could separate us. God was a big part of our friendship and that was huge for me. Most of the friends from the past weren’t all that into God or religion. Everything we did involved some kind of conversation about God and our beliefs. I got involved in music, particularly in singing.
Then High school hit, and with another surge of my peers I lost touch with Abbey, at least until my senior year. I made friends with another girl that once again became my best friend, her name was Paisley. I feel that God sent me to her for a number of reasons. She was a mess when I met her, she was going through an identity crisis, trying to figure out if she was into girls or boys, failing school, and was suffering from bipolar and depression. I believe that God sent me to her to straighten her out, not change her but to help her. And that I did. I saved her life twice, I saved her from herself. She on a couple of occasions attempted suicide. But by our sophomore year she was off her depression pills, always smiling, making an effort towards school and making friends left and right. I was so proud of her. She graduated on time with me and that was a major accomplishment for her. We became best friends and lasted through almost four years. We had a falling out over something so small that it really shouldn’t have been an issue. But that is ok, today we aren’t best friends, but we still talk civilly. I got even more involved in music, joining the Treble choir, Concert choir, Jazz choir, and Gospel choir. I was the president of the madrigal script writing committee for the choir for three years. Yes I was a writer even in high school. I also made it into the prestigious Tri-M Music Honor Society.
High school for me wasn’t the best time of my life. I know that above it sounds great, but it wasn’t. I was the kid labeled lesbian because my best friend had identity issues, labeled book worm because I always had a book, labeled anti-social because I had my head down to avoid conflict and because I was shy, labeled slut because of the people that I hung out with, but yet labeled most likely to become a nun because of the clothes I wore. High school for me was horrible. I was never pretty enough, never had the right group of friends, never had to popular clothes. I wanted to be the “it” girl or be invisible. But that never happened. I had a issue with my world history teacher. If you remember I was sent to the principals office for praying in school. Well my senior year, we were talking about the rise of Christianity because it went along with the fall of Constantine. We were told that we would only spend a day talking about it. Fine with me. Three days later, we are still talking about it and my teacher comes over to me and says go up to the board and write three things you know about Jesus Christ. I refused. Religion is not supposed to be present in a public school. Well she didn’t like that. She used this opportunity in history to convert us all over to her religion. Not OKAY!!! So she sent me down to the principal and my senior year I was suspended for two whole weeks because I refused to break a school rule. Now tell me where is the justice in that? This episode didn’t change my look on God, he was in my life, but kind of in the back seat. High school was all about me and the way that I wanted to do things.
Graduation came and I was so excited to get out of there. I started college right away. My freshman year, first semester in 2007 I found myself crying at the alter of one of the local churches. My mother came home one day and told my brother and I that she had stage 3 breast cancer. She said to all of us, that this is just another test that God has given her like he has given all of us and we as a family will get through it together. I was so devastated I shut down all of my emotions and went and talked to a minister at school and asked him why God had chosen my family for this test. He couldn’t give me any answers. She survived it with six months of chemotherapy and surgery. She after surgery had 36 radiation treatments, and another surgery to remove 95% of her thyroid gland. She was in remission for about a year and a half when it came back. This time in 5 different locations through out her body, her liver, lungs, stomach, adrenal gland and a hernia. She was classified as Stage 4 because it came back. She had Triple Negative Breast cancer. It is the most aggressive form of breast cancer and has a mortality rate of 85%. She had about 9 months of chemotherapy and went on a trip to Washington DC with my brother. She came home and about a week and a half later she blew up like a balloon with water. She was suffering from renal failure, kidney failure, two blood clots and was admitted to the hospital. They sent her home with her own personal pharmacy to help with pain and blood clots and things to help pull the water off her abdomen. I came home from my summer job in Kansas on Saturday July 29th. She became jaundiced and we took her to the ER on the 30th. On August 1st they told her that she had 2 weeks to 2 months to live. I couldn’t believe it. Before my next birthday God was going to take my mother away from me for the rest of my life. Not something easily swallowed. We set her up with hospice at home and called all of her relatives. We had a hospital bed sent to our house and we cared for her. August 2nd she told me that in the past four years all she has done is prayed for her life to be spared. And that God apparently felt that she no longer needed to be here with us. She told me as I was sitting in the hospital crying over her that she will miss me so much and that she couldn’t have asked for a better more caring, loving and faithful daughter than me. She told me that she was so proud of me and that even after she was gone that she would always be with me, all I had to do was pray.
August 7th I put her to bed and helped my dad put his make-shift bed of blankets together on the floor next to her bed. I said my good night and went to bed, I never actually fell asleep. I could hear my dad pacing back and fourth between the bedroom and the kitchen. at 1102 PM he came into my room and said that he needed my help. I got up immediately and ran to her bed side. She couldn’t talk because she couldn’t breathe very well. She asked for a pen and paper and I yelled at my dad to call hospice to get someone down here now, or she wasn’t going to make it. She wrote “Need Ox, Get Hanna, Need Help” on a piece of paper. I didn’t want to leave her side so I got my brother up and told him to go get Hanna. He did and she did her assessment and said that there was nothing she could do without her equipment. We called hospice 13 times and no one could come. My mother died that night. Really at 1134 PM August 7, but hospice didn’t get there until 1230 August 8th. I watched my mother die. Held her in my arms, cried over her body and shut all emotion off.
My mother was my best friend. In that moment I questioned my faith in God, was there something that I could have done differently? Why did He have to take her, why my family, my mother? My mother was involved in not just mine or my brother’s lives, she was a mother to all of my friends, an inspiration to all who got to meet her. She touched so many lives, and all because God told her to. I am still struggling with my faith in God at times, but it is apparently apart of the natural course of grieving. I miss my mother so much, and I know that God has a bigger plan for her. I know that he feels that I can live my life without her. Each day is a struggle, but if I walk in God’s path, everything should work out just as he had planned.
This is my story and as sad as it is, it is also inspirational. What I would say to you is cherish every moment you have with your mother. There is nothing stronger than a mother/daughter bond. Believe that God has a plan for you, whether he gives you obstacles or removes them from your life. He is present and will always be there, leading the way. Believe in him because he believes in you!
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