Death isn’t something that’s on the mind of your average college student. Classes? For sure. Lunch? Definitely. Gas prices? Well, maybe. But death? No way. Which is why it hits you like a truck when it happens. It isn’t on your radar, so it shouldn’t matter, right? But for me, I was consumed by the thought.
My grandma was diagnosed with breast cancer in the summer of 2015. That’s the same year I started going to a college that was 2,195 miles away from home. It was the same year a friend of mine committed suicide. It was the same year I thought about following in his footsteps. The notions of death and dying were always lurking, skulking at the back of my mind, but I knew I couldn’t let it consume me. I had to keep moving on—so I did.
Photo courtesy of Robert Eckles
Freshman and sophomore year came and went with few issues. Then junior year started. With the pain of my grandmother’s initial diagnosis long gone, I was fine. Over the summer, she wasn’t doing too well, but I told myself to think nothing of it once I left. With each passing mile that separated us as I drove to school, they also separated the overwhelming immediacy of the situation in my thoughts. Somehow, I thought, nothing bad would happen while I was at school. My world back home would magically freeze, only to resume upon my return.
I would receive the occasional phone call from my father regarding her health: “She’s not doing well today,” or “We decided to stop the chemo and radiation,” or “She’s on a respirator now.” Of course I was worried, but I couldn’t dedicate much of my time to the gremlin of a thought that occupied a section in the darkest corners of my mind. I had school to worry about. Then it happened.
I was sitting on my roommate’s bed, telling her and a friend about some boy that I fancied, when I looked down at my phone and saw a single missed call from my father. Somehow I knew. I just knew. My stomach sank as I paused the conversation to return the call. *Ring ring* My heart sank *ring ring* should I hang up? *ring ring* I told myself that it would be okay.
I was told she didn’t go in pain, but I don’t know if my dad lied to me. How could I? You can’t hear a lie in the voice of a crying man. After I hung up, my world was forever changed. I realize that’s cliché, but it’s the truth. I wasn’t the same person coming out of that conversation as I was going in. It was as if my fantastical daydream that the world would freeze just for me had betrayed my trust. My worldview, albeit naїve and impossible, had shattered. Things happened when I was gone. And I couldn’t go back to see the events unfold, I was 2,195 miles away. I was a spectator in my own life.
I don’t remember much of that night or the day after. I emailed my professors and told them that I wasn’t coming into class. I emailed my editor and told her that I couldn’t possibly write an article that week. I was nothing. I was a shell. And I couldn’t do anything about it. All I could do was think about how far away I was from her and how, during the summer, I worked not 20 miles from her house and could hold her hand at a moment’s notice. But now all I could do was feverishly go through my camera roll looking for pictures of her or text a family member and hope that they would respond.
The weekend came and went and on Monday, I returned to class. I continued with my observations. I made posters. I completed presentations. I finished assignments. I begrudgingly participated in classroom discussions. Yet all I thought was how unfair the situation was. When you’re home and you lose someone, the world stops spinning, but you’re with your family. You can go to the funeral and get your closure, you have time to grieve, you have time to pray (if that’s your thing), you have time to do nothing and curl up in a ball if that’s what you need to do. When you’re so far away all you can do is nothing, but a different kind of nothing.
Your world stops spinning but you still have to act as though everything is fine. You can’t be with your family because they’re a country away. You can’t hug your brother and reassure him that it’s going to be okay and that you’re there for him (because you’re not, you’re 2,195 miles away). You can’t memorize the features of your grandma’s face one last time because the school year is already in full swing and, because you haven’t seen them in months, you’ve already forgotten the minute details of your family’s facial features anyway. You can’t go to the funeral because it’s too far away, you have obligations for school, and Thanksgiving is around the corner and you’ll be home in two weeks so what’s the point of coming back for just one day?
This happened only a few days before Halloween, and I still feel useless. Everything is that kind of numb that only drunk people and hypothermic people experience. I know I have to keep moving on because, if I don’t, more than just my world will crumble. My grades will go, too. And if that happens, then this will all have been for nothing.
The notions of death and dying are now front and center in my mind, but I know I shouldn’t let it consume me. I have to keep moving on—so I will. That’s all I can do, until Thanksgiving anyway.
Rep image courtesy of Pexels