Falling Away

During my sophomore year of high school, I came home to an uncertainty. I remember it being a cold and crisp night, I was wet and shivering because I had just gotten out of the pool. As I walked in the door I had a feeling of emptiness, like something was wrong. I was right, my mother was in her room crying. She was outraged, confused and unable to explain to me what was wrong. Dreadful and appalling thoughts were shooting through her head, as if she was about to reach the end of her life any second. She wondered what she had done wrong. Finally she was able to calmly tell me that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

I felt a knife jab me in the chest and my jaw fell to the floor in shock. I was terrified and convinced that my mother was about to keel over and die within the next minute. When that did not happen, I realized that the process she had to go through was almost as bad. For instance, the chemotherapy she took altered her blood chemistry in order to kill the cancer cells, it also made her hair fall out; and she felt nauseated and sick frequently from the radiation and chemotherapy treatments. I hoped the medicine would kill the cancer before it killed my mom. Her personality changed because of all of this and we fought constantly; it seemed impossible for me to be near her without having an argument with her. The reality that she may die made me realize I needed to be compassionate towards her. No one can imagine what it is like to be constantly afraid of losing a parent. It feels like something is slipping through your fingers and you can't get a tight grip.

From this hardship came many good additions to my life. I had to mature almost overnight. During the stage of my life between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, I lived my life carelessly and did not realize that if I wanted to accomplish something, I would have to work for it. After the diagnosis I became more independent and interested in new things. My time was better spent and I became a responsible and reliable person. I spent more quality time with my family and good friends. In addition, I found out who my real friends were, the people that were there for me during those hard times.

My mom seemed to be doing better as she finished her chemotherapy. She seemed like she had more energy than normal. She was back to normal doing all the things she loved doing. She was so full of life. A couple of weeks later she returned to the hospital for a checkup to make sure her cancer was completely gone. Once again she was in shocked with the results. This time however she kept them a secret. She didn't update me with any news of change so I went on thinking everything was all right; thinking my mother was in the clear.

It wasn't until about a month ago, actually on Christmas, that my

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