I walked across the hall to my parent's bedroom to get my coloring book. As I opened the door, I saw my mom lying in bed. She didn't look like her usual energetic self; she looked tired and in pain. My mom had been diagnosed with breast cancer and undergone a mastectomy.

A few years passed, and I started to gain a sense of normalcy. However, that sense of “normalcy” quickly changed during the spring of my sophomore year in college when my grandmother died. That summer, my uncle died, and in the fall, at the start of my junior year in college, I received a phone call that would change my life forever.
‍

I still remember it like it was yesterday. I was on my way to class when my phone rang. I picked it up, and all I remember hearing on the other line was, "you need to come home. Mom is dying."

I crawled like an infant to the nearest object that would block me from the view of my peers passing on their way to class. I crouched behind a dumpster crying my eyes out, as I sat rocking myself back and forth in the fetal position for what seemed like hours.

Only two weeks had passed between the time I got that phone call and when we held my mother's funeral. They were simultaneously the fastest and slowest two weeks of my life. While I am incredibly grateful that I could be by my mother's side to say goodbye at the time of her death, I felt completely unprepared and overwhelmed during the entire experience.

I spent the next decade in and out of processing my grief. Sometimes dealing with it head-on and sometimes using substances to numb the pain. I was not ok but pretended like I was because I didn't know what else to do, and society expected me to return to normal after a few months.