In February of 2025, my family and I found out that my Mom had stage 4 cancer. Trying to get through the rest of the semester was very hard for me, but I knew that I could get through it because she could beat cancer. I made it through the hardest semester of my life, thankful, and was able to come home and spend the summer with her. Everything was going great; every single piece of information I heard about how things were going was positive. I would hear things like “The chemo is working and is killing off the cancer.” That made me so happy knowing she was getting better, and although there were some hospital visits, I was always hopeful. 

Even though things were moving in the right direction, one thought stuck with me and was always in the back of my mind: “What if she doesn’t beat it?” My mom was always there for me through the toughest times in my life, being my biggest supporter. Even when I fucked up, she was always there to yell at me and help me figure out where to go from there. Every year, my friends and I go to Old Orchard Beach, ME together for a week-long vacation. Right before our vacation this year, my Mom went into the ER because she was dehydrated from getting a colonoscopy. I visited her, and she told me to go on vacation because that’s who she was. She never wanted anyone to cancel their plans because of what was happening to her. I had such an amazing week with my friends, and it is one that I will never forget. 

I got home after the week and immediately went to visit her. Everything seemed fine, and the doctors were hopeful. The next day I went to visit her, and she was starting to be a bit confused. Because she became dehydrated, her kidneys and liver started to not function properly, so the ammonia wasn’t getting processed as it should, and it was going to her brain. At one point that night, her doctor came in, and my dad pulled him aside to ask him some questions. After he was finished, he and I went to grab dinner. In line to grab food, he told me what he was talking to the doctor about. “She doesn’t have long to live; it could be months, even weeks.” The next morning, I was awoken to a banging noise on my wall at 6 am. I looked down at my phone to check the time and saw a text saying, “You should get to the hospital now... things have gotten worse.” Although she fought long and hard, she died around 4 pm that day.