At the age of ten struggles had become my reality and my parents did their best to shield us from its brutal force. My parents that were immigrants from Haiti barely spoke English and clerked the miniature market business that they started. However, after many attempts trying keeping the business afloat, they needed to close their store. Shortly after, we received a thirty day eviction notice, and my mother was pregnant with my youngest sister. We were already struggling financially with many bills.
A 15 year old boy with leukemia had just passed away in front of me and his mom. He was fine that morning, but then he suddenly started gasping, and was dead within few minutes. I just felt like I was blind; I couldn’t breathe. I ran to the supervisor (a nun sister), who was rounding with the main doctor. She told me to tell his mother not to cry loudly; that may disturb the rounds.
Growing up it was just myself, my sister and my Dad, and on the occasion visiting with my mother every other weekend, and when she was gone, us two girls spent it with my grandparents on my mother’s side of the family. Without having my older sister around to assist me with school work or such, I happened to learn my lessons with the little aid from my teachers while at school. Not having an at home older
I knew something was wrong because I peeked outside and saw my dad outside on our deck in tears. I said “what’s wrong?” She said “Cannon, your grandfather passed away”. I burst into tears. It was already a rough time for me because about a month before that day, my great grandmother had passed away.
My family seemed to always be on the unjust side of things. In 2014 both of my parents lost their jobs. While my dad regained work quickly my mother did not. Though she was previously only earning minimum wage it was a boost of income our family needed. My brother was in need of double valve transplant shortly after my parents job fiasco, but we were unable to to pay for it.
In a life changing year and a half, my mother went through radiation treatments and multiple surgeries. After her first surgery and a few weeks into radiation treatments my mother became gravely ill. She struggled to get out of bed and every day became a battle. When my brother and I could get away from school we would wait in the hospital with her. Her health
My mother drop out of school to take care of her siblings while her parents worked. I have a large family,
My hands became clammy and my heart started racing. I did not want to believe the words coming out of my mother’s lips, “His kidney failed three weeks after the operation, he is dead”. I was just 5 years old and I felt like there was no purpose to live. My father was everything to me. I already missed his genuine kindness, the way his smile formed whenever he talked to me about life, and the times where we had father-son time at the airport, watching airplanes fly.
Tuesday afternoon. I was reading a book and drinking a cup of hot chocolate in my room, near the window. It was January, but everything looked so calm and nice outside. Suddenly, I heard my mom calling my name and she told me that we need to talk.
I lived with my grandparents and with my brother and I, a family of four scrapped by off my grandfather pension. It wasn’t enough. My grandmother pulled me out of school, at my insistence, and told the school that I was going to be homeschooled now. Being too young at 15 to
My sister, whom was simply a freshman in college became our sole provider and I remember knowing the only way we were surviving was through food stamps, Medicaid, my sisters full time job, and the help of those around us. At the age of eighteen she stepped up to the plate and made sure she made enough to pay bills. She constantly worked selflessly because of necessity. My sister served as an inspiration to me. I believe it was then that we realized that we were capable of a vast amount of things independently from my father when we had always believed it was not possible.
I was only a freshman when I began to notice my mother was taking my grandma to doctor’s appointments repeatedly. I honestly thought it was because she was elderly. But never in a million years did I think my own grandma would be diagnosed with cancer. I was only 14 when I found out the news. At that age, when I heard of the word cancer, I automatically thought of the word death.
Final Paper The person I chose to interview for this final paper was my mother, Peggy. I am going to start with providing a brief social history on her. Peggy was born on October 29, 1940 to my grandparents, Marie and John. She is the second of six children, and was raised in Philadelphia.
Participants noted the change in touch from their family and friends prior to diagnosis of their cancer. Some participants found comfort in the changes and some did not. Many participant’s noted a struggle between craving normalcy and familiarity from loved ones and still wanting to feel love and support. One participant reported not letting his mother touch him when he was gravely ill. Another participant noted that her family, particularly her mother and daughter, began to distance themselves from her after her diagnosis.
I watched my mother fade away slowly as she was battling pancreatic cancer. I looked after her everyday as best as I could; however, the feeling of my eventual solitude was unbearable. The thought of my mother’s imminent demise made me feel like my heart was being continuously stabbed. Watching my mother suffer was one of the hardest things I have ever had to go through. After her passing; something changed in me, darkness filled where love once was.
