A Beautiful Soul

This, my lovely readers, is a ghost story. A tragic tale of loss and love, and everything in between.

My parents were older. They had me when my mother was 44 and my father was 59. My father had been a heavy smoker since he was 18. By the time I was born, he had gotten to a point where he smoked at least a pack a day. They had met 23 years prior at this point, and had grown very close. My mother knew that my father’s smoking habit was extremely unhealthy and came to terms with the fact that he probably wouldn’t be there to see the child they would have - if they had one, grow up. Eventually, after much persuasion from my mother, my father agreed.

Meanwhile, my mother had her own battles. A few months after I was born, my mother developed breast cancer. She decided to get a double mastectomy, willing to go to extremes in hopes of getting rid of it. She was in the clear for a few years until the cancer returned a second time, when I was 7 years old. This time, she resorted to chemotherapy. My father would drive her to and from her appointments, but at the time I only partially understood what they were for. She was very tired afterwards and would rest.

Later that year around Christmas time (I remember because the Christmas tree was up), I came out of my room to watch TV with my mom. She was wearing a semi-transparent pink bonnet. Upon closer observation, I realized that I didn’t see her hair. I said to her, “Mommy, you don’t have hair.”

She replied “Yeah, I shaved it all off.”

“Why?”

“With the chemotherapy, it would have started falling out anyway so I decided to get rid of it. I didn’t want it to be shedding everywhere.”

As a child growing up, I did not fully understand the severity of the situation. Yet, in a strange way I did. I grew up with the constant fear that I would lose her sooner than most. The fear was so intense that I would check to make sure she was breathing in the middle of the night.

In September of the next year, when I was 8 years old, my Grandmother passed away. I was very close to her, so I was devastated. This was the first heavy death that I experienced. I would say that this is when I learned about death, but it definitely wasn’t. I went to my first funeral when I was 5 years old - it was my mom’s friend. She wanted to introduce me to death, just in case her time came at any point during my youth.

My Grandmother had a hard and very tragic life. My mother, although sad to have lost her, came across the realization that her mother no longer had to suffer. No more were the nights she would pray for God to take her because she was so unhappy. No longer would she be unable to sleep because her asthma and chronic bronchitis was so bad that she couldn’t breathe. No more albuterol machines or asthma pumps. Gone were the days where she was abused verbally and, more often than not, physically by her own children. My mother expressed to me that she didn’t grieve anymore once she thought about it, because my Grandmother was free from the pain she had endured all her life. It was over.

From this, I learned that family isn’t always family. There would be several other instances in which this lesson was reiterated - not only through my mother’s words, but by witnessing it.

My grandmother had put all the responsibilities of the funeral in my mom’s hands, because she knew that she was the most capable of her six kids.

And so, with the cancer and the pain of losing her mother, she bucked up and took care of it. Of course, my family made it more complicated than it needed to be by causing unnecessary drama. But she dealt with it.

By the time the day of the funeral arrived, my mother was so tired and stressed out that she needed to wear sunglasses because there were dark circles under her eyes.

This was the first time the lesson of making the most of the time you have was shown to me.

My mother’s family was highly dysfunctional, and she would tell me various stories about her childhood. They were all horrible, and I gained even more respect for her because of it. My Grandfather was very abusive, and my Grandmother would often leave the house to escape it.

With no one to take care of her and her siblings, my mother adopted the caretaker role. She didn’t know how to cook, but she tried her best to feed everyone. She made sure they were bathed and sent out to school - herself included. My mother wasn’t more than 12 years old when this began. Eventually, my Grandfather fell ill and despite how horribly he treated her, my Grandmother took care of him. Things began to settle down. He passed away long before I was born.

From this, I realized that people do bad things and the ones that have been wronged - despite their anger and pain - still do good things for the ones that wronged them.

I appreciated my mother’s transparency. She never hid anything from me, and that in itself is a very important lesson she taught me. To be honest and straightforward. Honesty is a trait that I value not only in myself, but I always look for it in partners and friends as well.

When I was 10, my father passed away. Yet again the lesson of making the most of the time you have was thrust in my face. We believe it was lung cancer, because he was throwing up blood.

My mother was devastated by his passing, and as strong as she was, I could see it. She slept more often, and locked herself in her room more often after work. Instead of cooking, she bought takeout more often than not. Looking back on it, I wish I had been in more of a position to support her. But I don’t think she wanted that. She still wanted to be strong for me.

She stayed in her heavy grieving stage for about a year until I finally began to see her returning back to her normal self. The pain did not go away - it never did - but she willed herself back into a new sense of normalcy.

Throughout the entire time of me growing up, my mother would sit and, at the time I thought of it as “lecturing”. Each time she sat me down, there was a lesson to be learned from her stories. Little did I know, she was preparing me for things that my young mind could not yet comprehend. Despite this, I soaked it all up like a sponge, and never forgot. All of those lessons became my core values. They taught me what to be wary of, what to look out for, and how to carry myself. She encouraged me to be independent, and not rely on anyone else for anything. Having her as an example, that was engraved in my mind. I ended up developing the same mindset.

Despite all of her pain, stress, and sickness, she still completely dedicated all of her time and energy to me. In the absence of my father, she took on both parental roles in a way. She was strict, but also kind. She saw my potential and pushed me to always do my best. She was stern, but also loving. I know it wasn’t easy raising me - I was always a little more outspoken than she had been growing up. Dealing with my trauma and all the feelings that came with that as well as her own was surely a challenge.

She wasn’t perfect, but I’ll be damned if she wasn’t the closest thing to it.

Throughout it all, she smiled. She laughed and continued to be her bubbly self. She had a heart of gold, and that was proved to me multiple times throughout the years. Watching her, I witnessed true strength.

There was a certain moral standard that my mother held herself to, and she raised me to be the same. She taught me to be selfless, to treat others well and with respect. She taught me that karma was real, and that not everyone is a good person. She told me countless stories about her experiences and what made her become more worldly. She raised me to have a good head on my shoulders and be smart. I learned how to read a room - I know that there are just some things you shouldn’t do and shouldn’t say in various situations. She taught me humility, and pointed out when I was wrong. She helped me see that no one is right all the time, and that includes oneself. I learned to know and admit when I am wrong and apologize. I learned to show gratitude to others.

I had a lot of bad experiences in school. Each time, I would come home and vent to her. I would break down and cry. After a while, I declared that everyone else in the world must be a bad person. If they weren’t, how could these things happen? Why did the things in our family happen? She, with her beautiful heart, felt my pain. She would comfort me, and reassure me that not every single person was bad. Yes, I should be wary. Yes, I should watch out for things.

“But there are good people out there, too. You just have to find them”, she said to me.

She cried at my high school graduation, but not only because she was proud of me. She was overjoyed to have made it that far. She had been preparing not only me, but herself for her untimely passing since the first time the cancer had struck. She felt blessed to have been there.

I found out a few days after my graduation that her cancer had returned a third time.

I knew what was coming, having experienced countless losses. I refused to acknowledge it. It set off such intense anxiety within me because I could feel it.

She knew, when she ran herself a bath and closed the shower curtain on that final night that the fate she had tried so desperately to prepare me for had come. She knew how devastated I would be. She knew all that I would have to face from there on. I believe that she had faith in me. Faith that I was smart and strong enough to get through it.

Being the only child, all of the responsibility to take care of the funeral was in my hands. My mother was extremely organized, so she left a binder with her Will as well as the life insurance policy in it. I was heartbroken and in shock, but like she did with her mother, I bucked up and handled it. I had no help from anyone with the arrangements. Once again, I realized that family isn’t always determined by blood. It isn’t always the support system that it is widely believed to be. Only the tenacity fueled by wanting to give her the best send off I could is what got me through it.

On the eve of the funeral when I went to view her, I didn’t believe it. She looked beautiful, but I didn’t believe it. Seeing all the features of her that had become so familiar and comforting to me laying unmoving in front of me messed me up. When I kissed her forehead it was cold and hard, not soft and warm like it always was.

Throughout the entire funeral, I expected her to sit up and say “Just kidding!” But she didn’t. Not at any point during the service, or even when they closed the casket and gave me the key to lock it. I watched them roll her out and put her into the gorgeous silver hearse they selected just for me.

I felt...empty and alone. Cold, empty and alone, because the only person that I had left in this world that really cared about me was gone. I wasn’t ready to lose her. She passed on when I needed her most. I was only 20 - what was I to do? There were still so many things I wanted to say and do for her. I grieved long and hard for her, and even to this day my heart aches. There will always be a hole that will never be filled again.

From losing her, I learned that people often don’t fully appreciate what they have until it’s gone. I vow to never let that happen again. The lesson that had been repeatedly shown to me finally became clear - to make the most of the time you have.

It put the final nail in the coffin of my understanding of life being unpredictable. No matter how long your days may seem, it always feels like a loved one’s life was too short once they leave. I live with a sense of urgency because of her passing - because tomorrow isn’t promised.

As I try my best to continue on with my life, I cannot help but remember and thank her. All the things she said, and all the things she taught me. All the love she gave, and all the sacrifices she made. As I rediscover myself and recall the things about me I’ve forgotten, I thank her even more. It hurts like hell and it’s overwhelming, but I thank her. I am who I am today because of her. I aim to be just like her, smiling in the face of all my pain and strife.

In a situation where a person you love (whether it’s familial, romantic, etc) is no longer there physically, the idea of you constantly searching for them keeps them with you. Every time you are reminded of them, they are with you. The sad part is that the bereaved do not often feel this way. I still break down and cry often because of all the things that I didn’t get to say and didn’t get to do. It hurts when I see everyone else around me with their parents. I still struggle with all of my loss, and I try to tell myself that she is always with me. I can hear her sometimes, often when I don’t know what to do. I think of what she would say, and sometimes I can feel her presence. All this is why I referred to my story as a ghost story.

Loss is never easy, but losing her taught me how to love unconditionally. I learned to let the people you love know that you love them any chance you get, because you never know when it may be the last. It taught me to say what you need to say, and think before you speak - and to never hold things back.