Losing a Parent

When I was 18 and in the last week my first quarter of sophomore year at Stanford, I got a call from my dad one night. He told me my mom wasn't doing well and asked me to come home. Mom had been diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 6 and had been in and out of the hospital for treatment and surgeries over the years, but for the most part, we didn’t live in the shadow of her illness.

My parents kept our lives as normal as possible. Mom would get tired easily and sometimes had to go away to the hospital, but this time, things had taken a turn for the worse during surgery. Not understanding the gravity of the situation, I asked if it could wait a few days until I was done with finals, but Dad insisted that I come home right away.

I loved being in college and living with my friends in the dorms, and was reluctant to leave, I went through the motions of calling the airline to see if I could get a flight home that night, and then called my academic advisor to let him know I’d be missing my finals. He kindly offered to notify my professors to ask if I could make up my exams later.

I took a red-eye from San Francisco to Chicago that evening. When I landed in O’Hare around 5 am, I called my dad to check in. He answered the phone in a faint, scratchy voice. When I asked how my mom was doing, he whispered, “It’s not good.” I don’t really remember the rest of the conversation, but when I landed at our local airport in Champaign, Illinois, instead of my dad, a family friend was there to pick me up. "Where's Dad?" I asked. While the details are hazy, at some point between getting picked up and arriving at home, I learned that my mom had died. I walked into my bedroom and collapsed into tears, wailing like a baby.

The next few days were a blur; I remember helping to pick a dress for my mom to be buried in. We had a wake at the funeral home, where I saw 엄마 (Eomma) in the casket for the first time. Her skin looked like wax. It was the first time I had seen a dead person or experienced the death of someone I knew. I chose to wear one of her dresses for the funeral. I gave a speech, saying that I hoped I could be good enough to make it to heaven to see her again. At the cemetery before they lowered the coffin, I was struck by the sense of finality. 

I recalled the last phone conversation I had with my mom, and talking about how my classes were going, and how I did on a recent exam. One of the last things she said to me was Try to do better next time. Such a stereotypical thing for a Korean parent to say. 

People brought us casseroles and tried to console me by sharing that they too had lost a parent. I stayed at home for about a month to take care of things around the house, but I was grateful to get to go back to Stanford in time for winter quarter. I took a few items of Mom's clothing as a way to cling to her.

The first few weeks were incredibly difficult. I was starting classes for the new quarter while studying for my make-up finals, including on weekends when everyone else was out having fun. I was buried in schoolwork and studying, and it took about a month to finally catch up.

From there, I started my grieving process, learning how to live as someone whose mother had died. None of my friends at school knew what it was like, though in subsequent years, sadly a few friends also parents from cancer. I remember feeling isolated and lonely, and that no one but my dad and brother could understand what I was going through, because we lost Mom together. Up to that point, I had an innocent and happy childhood, so I was new to this kind of adversity.

In the year after Mom died, I went through many ups and downs, as expected. After I made up my final exams, I compensated for studying through several weekend by drinking too much and doing stupid things, but luckily I managed to avoid getting hurt or causing permanent damage. I went to therapy for the first time.

Gradually, the pain became less sharp, but the feeling of loss persisted and became part of my new identity. I attended a church service on Mother’s Day that year, and ran out of the building when I felt the tears welling. It was clearly too soon. However, I kept living my life as best as I could, and the following summer, was able to take an amazing five-week trip backpacking around Europe with a good friend.

December 2021 was the 30th anniversary of my mom’s passing. I still feel the loss with every major milestone or life event. I wish my mom could have met my husband Chris and my kids, and known me as an adult.

I live with a distant fear of cancer hanging over my head, but I have the cold comfort of being cancer-free beyond the age at which my mom was diagnosed and living past the age when she died.