Whispers of Hope

The light in the darkness was the first thing I remember. My dad crying and frantic, demanding I get up and saying we had to get to the hospital before it was too late. Too late for what? I wondered. Visiting hours? Why was there such an urgency to get there? And this being the night of my brothers’ military ball, they were not home to ride with us. I was so confused, but I did not know what to be confused about. In my young mind, she was just going to be there for a little bit to get treated, and then she was going to come home. Everything would be fine. But my dad knew the truth, but he could never bring himself to tell me. He never explained it to me. Nobody had told me what was happening. I guess they thought they were protecting me. Possibly they thought, Oh, she’s a kid. She doesn’t need to know about this. Nobody told me my entire world was about to be broken.

Dad sped the whole way to the hospital, running through traffic lights with his hazard lights on. I warned him to stop doing that. If cops caught him, they would give him a ticket, and it would take even longer. He explained that if you have your hazard lights on, they will

follow you to the hospital, but they will not pull you over. Which to this day I still do not even know if that is true.

But we were already too late.

Walking into the recovery room, I spotted my mom free of all the tubes and machines she had accumulated during her stay. She looked like she was sleeping. It was just my mom again, beautiful and peaceful. But she was not asleep. Her skin was cold to the touch and lifeless. In that moment I begged God to bring her back. I swore eternal fidelity and service if he would just bring her back. He had allowed Jesus to perform miracles; he could do it again. Especially for one of his most faithful followers. She prayed the rosary every day going and leaving work. God would not punish her or us like this. This was not happening. It just could not be happening. God would not do this. Whatever I had done wrong, punish me but leave her here. I was not done being raised; there was still so much I did not know. How was I supposed to do this? My orbit revolved around her being my sun, and she was gone. I begged my mom to come back. There must be a little bit of her still in there, and if there were, she was going to fight her way back to us. She just could not be gone, I begged God once more: “Bring her back, please. Please. Please. I’m not ready to do this without her.” But he never did. No matter how hard I focused on her, there was no indication of survival.

For the next few days I was on autopilot. I just sat there

watching everything happening around me—having no feeling, having no concept of reality—just watching the

world go by. People called to ask if they could help. People asked if they could bring by casseroles and to offer their condolences. People said if we ever needed anything just to call. But to a thirteen-year-old girl mad at the world and everything in it, nothing anyone did or said would make it better; it was only making it worse. People would say, “She’s in a better place now. She is resting now. Everything heals with time. Everything happens for a reason.” In hindsight, I see the efforts in their consolation, but in my young selfish mind, all I wanted was my mom back. I knew time was moving on, but I just could not feel it, hear it, or see it.

I shook hands after hands until there was only a

couple of people left, and then it was time. The moment I had been avoiding the entire day had come, and I had to face the reality that my hero was gone and was not coming back. The moment that they closed her casket I did not want to let her go. I knew that I could not; she would not want me to. Being the woman that she was, she would have immediately risen out of her casket to tell me to get up. I could almost hear her directing me not to quit! She would say, “You’re not a quitter! Get up and keep fighting! I do not care how much it hurts. I do not care how much you want to give up. I do not care what happened to you or what you did wrong. You do not stop till you are dead and buried. And even then, give God what for! You are your mother’s daughter!” So I pressed my hand against the pew and slowly but surely, I rose.

Takeaway: If there is one thing I can assure you, in life you will go through tough times. I am not talking about the everyday stresses of bills and responsibilities. I am talking about the times that will define who you are. The times that have you feeling out of control and desperate. Unfortunately, I know this feeling well. I cannot tell you anything that will take it away and make it better. What I can tell you is that in life there tends to be ebbs and f lows. Just as the bad times come, the good times will follow. Nothing lasts forever, the good or the bad. I know it can be hard to keep going when you have no ambition to, but just breathe. If you can make it through one minute, you can make it through the next. And if you can make it five minutes, you can make it ten. If you can make it an hour, the next hour is achievable. That is the key to survival. It is not just getting up again and never giving up. That is what you do when you get knocked down. When you are broken, though, the only thing I have found to get me through is to try not to focus on the big picture and just take things a minute at a time. Eventually you will climb your way out, one inch at a time. Just don’t stop moving forward.