Being in college and away from home for the majority of the last four years has forced me to get used to various unpleasantries that range from eating dining hall food on the regular to being apart from my family for extended periods of time. While not ideal, this wasn't unexpected, but instead something I saw from miles away. Therefore, this was something that I could prepare for months in advance.
What I didn't anticipate, however, was the amount of tragedy that would strike my family during this time. And how there was no other choice for my parents, but to break the news to me over the phone.
As we grow older and move out of our childhood homes (whether temporarily for school or for good), I know that this just becomes an unfortunate fact of life. There are risky surgeries, cancer diagnoses, other major illnesses and injuries and worst of all: deaths; and we're not always going to be there for them. We're not always going to be there, and so we'll have to hear about them in ways that aren't going to necessarily be as comforting or as kind as we'd like them to be. I used to have the luxury of being sat down on a comfy couch in our living room before the bomb was dropped. Now I just get a phone call.
It's not anyone's fault, least of all my parents –– especially since they, too, must hear most of the news over the phone –– and I know that had to have been hard for them as well. It's such a lonely and painful way to find out that everything has changed –– and not for the better.
I remember when my grandpa passed away in October. It was a Monday; I'd just visited him at the hospital the day before. I remember that I got the phone call after seven, after I'd just returned to my dorm from a short evening class. As I choked on tears, I heard my mom tell me that it'd been peaceful, and that he'd been surrounded by most of our family. I liked that I could hear her voice, that my whole world was collapsing on itself and yet her voice could still reach me, soothingly familiar. But words can only do so much.
"I wish I could hug you," she'd said. I'd wished she could, too.
That wasn't the first time she'd said that to me, and I imagine that it won't be the last. Knowing that doesn't make it any easier just as it's also not easier to know that I'm not the only one who has had this happen to them time and time again since turning 18. But it's our new normal, something we'll have to get used to to some degree from now on as terrible as it is.
Welcome to adulthood, I guess.
