Randy King Memorial Scholarship

One night my dad began to feel very sick so he went to the clinic and the doctor told him that he had a common sickness. However, my dad didn't stop feeling ill, so my mom took him to the hospital where he was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma. Obviously, my entire family was full of sadness and shock because that is the last news that we expected to hear. I was just in first grade, so I didn't understand everything that was going on. However, I knew that my dad was sick, and that scared me. My mom made sure that my two older brothers and I felt comforted and assured us everything was going to be alright. My dad began chemo and was an extremely positive man despite the sickness in his body. We had a very busy lifestyle and though my dad was sick he didn't let his illness define his day to day life. The most inspiring quality about my dad was his determination. He was a chief of air traffic control, basketball coach for my brother's team, bible study leader, the best husband, dad, son, friend, and mentor for many people. Even when he was not feeling well he showed up for our family and never pitied himself, when he had every right to. He was the most authentic definition of what it means to be a faithful leader. He lead others by example every single day by his inspiring joy for life. Throughout my dad's journey of cancer I grew more weary as I got older at the fear of losing one of the people who I love most in the world. I truly could not imagine the future of my life without my dad. I started to think about the milestones I would have in my life, that he might not make it to and that made me extremely scared. He went through many chemo treatments and two stem cell transplants throughout his battle of cancer. My dad taught me many lessons through his seven year journey with cancer. He taught me to appreciate each day and to have genuine joy for life. When I would see my dad sick it caused me to feel very heartbroken because I did not want to see one of my favorite people hurting. What I noticed though was that he never felt sorry for himself and saw the light in the darkest day. My dad always gave my family motivational talks on how to be the best versions of ourselves. He made me want to be a better person because though he was extremely sick, he had such a positive outlook on life. He taught me to never take a day for granted and instilled me with the confidence that I could do anything I put my mind to. Though I had to see my dad go through such an awful circumstance he changed my outlook on life and made me want to be the best version of myself. When I was in seventh grade my dad passed away,and I didn't know what to do without him. However, I truly leaned into my faith and encouraging family to get me through the grieving. I always think about how my dad would want me to be, which is to reach my goals and be excited to live my life, and that alone gets me through. My dad's cancer is the hardest situation I have ever endured in life, but he prepared me to take life day by day with a positive attitude.

I was nine years old when my dad was first diagnosed with colon cancer. I don’t remember much about it, since I was so young and my parents tried to keep the fact out of my life for my own sake. I only vaguely knew what cancer was at that age, simply that it was a deadly disease that other families were affected by. As soon as I understood he had cancer, it was gone like nothing ever happened (though he’d gone through radiation, chemo and two surgeries), and I went back to living the stress-free life of a child. Halfway through my eighth grade year, it came back in his liver, and with surgery and treatment was conquered again. But only a year and a half later, it returned, this time as inoperable stage four colon cancer with tumors in his liver. This has meant chemotherapy every two weeks for the last three years. So, unless it miraculously goes away, he will most likely keep having to do this routine or some version of it until the end. This treatment limits what he can do, and it hurts my soul to see. A man who used to teach math GED prep classes and volunteer for the Salvation Army has to seek refuge in a bathroom every other weekend. My rec league baseball coach, who used to be at every game, and was even inducted into the Franklin Baseball Club Hall of Fame in 2021, is tired all the time, has lost 50 pounds over the last few years, and has countless medications on the kitchen counter for everyone to see. On the outside, this seems devastating–it has been, and still is. But it is also now strangely normal. This disease has become part of my family’s life, and part of our calendar just like my part-time job or theatre rehearsal. At this point I understand that it is a terminal diagnosis, and so I just appreciate what he can do with this disease and the treatment that confines him. He can’t do the things he enjoys anymore, like golf or go on larger vacation trips, but he can organize his huge baseball card collection. We still talk about our favorite teams, celebrate our victories when we have them, and still try to go to as many Vanderbilt sports events as we can. My dad's fight with cancer has taught me that there are no small victories. Back in 2023, before the chemo side effects increased, we went to a Purdue football game, where I will start college in the fall. We bundled up in the Indiana cold at Ross-Ade stadium on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, all just to share a moment. The Boilermakers' win made the weekend all the more special, especially now that we realize he may not be able to make it back to my new campus. My dad was able to see where I will continue to learn and grow, built on the foundation he has given me. For about the last nine years, my dad has had cancer, and for the last nine years it’s been a part of our lives like a weird family member. At different points, I’ve ignored it, yelled at it, talked badly about it–but learned to live with it. We all have to bend to its needs like some kind of monarch, but he doesn’t let it rule over him. My dad lives his life as independent from his cancer as he can, while he can, and I love and respect him for it.

I view myself as a Kintsugi bowl. Kintsugi is a Japanese art where gold lacquer is used to mend the broken parts of a bowl. The end result is a beautiful bowl that has gold lacquer where the cracks were. My father was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2009. After going through several rounds of radiation, he was temporarily in remission. During those eleven years he gave me a normal childhood filled with love and affection. In 2018, he relapsed. His numbers were high, so he started going through experimental treatments, one of which caused a stroke leaving him with a condition called aphasia. This happened in February of my sophomore year; he continued to go downhill. While he was in a rehabilitation home, I called him every day and drove there after school. I learned how to love from a distance and learned how to communicate in ways other than speech. After he was released, I kept a close eye on him, but he was still independent. Then he had his second stroke which amplified all of these symptoms. By then it was April of 2023. I was almost out of school and all my attention was on him. I learned patience and empathy; imagine trying to figure out that your dad wants water, but it takes 10 minutes for him to communicate that, leaving him sobbing by the end. It breaks a little part of you. I learned how to balance family, trauma, and school. In October of my junior year, things started to get really bad. After school, I would go straight home to help him, feed him, or drive him to appointments. I learned a lot about caring for the people around you at any cost. Watching my everything wither into nothing was a sight I never thought I would see. Despite being broken, I learned compassion for other people, because their stares and whispers come from a place of unknown struggles. I became a translator for my father and learned his new language, talking to different doctors about his treatment and symptoms. My junior year isn't a memory I like to think about because it ended up being my last full year with my father. It was the last week of June of 2024 and my dad was given 6 months to live. He died about three weeks later, leaving my family shattered. I had learned to be self-dependent because my mom had to become my dad’s full-time caregiver. I learned to cook, clean, and buy necessities for myself, because my mom needed a perfect daughter, not another worry. Losing the carefree part of my childhood made me try to retain some fleeting parts of it, so I tanned, swam, and I became my own person. I read books about summers in Italy and falling in love. Still, my dad died on July 19, 2024. At the time, my favorite book was When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, in which Kalanithi finally realizes, “Life wasn’t about avoiding suffering.” Instead the things you go through shape who you are. The things that happened to my dad broke me, but my love for my family became the gold lacquer that shaped me into a new person. In fact, I’ve come to realize that we are all broken in some way, but this time in my life taught me to show others grace and love when they need it most. Even in the hardest times, brokenness can be made beautiful.

An year eight old boy doesn't have the capacity to understand what cancer is. So when my parents came home from the doctor with news of my fathers diagnosis, to me cancer was the same thing as a common cold. My father, Edward Morgan Grove, was diagnosed with Mantle Cell Lymphoma, a rare and aggressive form of non-hodgkin lymphoma. Even though I didn't, my father knew he was going to die fighting this battle. He recognized that growing up without a father to rely on would be a difficult path for me. Knowing he couldn't share his lifetime of knowledge with me at eight years old, he spent the last one and a half years he had left on earth writing letters for me to open as I grew up. Every birthday and milestone I reach has a letter waiting for me, telling me about himself, and teaching all the advice he never got the chance to. Although he isn't with us anymore, I'm hopeful he would be proud of who I am today because I've lived my life following his guidance. My father was a real estate appraiser, and often took me to job sites with him. We’d walk through the houses together, pointing out which features strengthen, or devalue a home. In the months leading up to his diagnosis, our dining table had been covered in blueprints. He was planning to expand our house, build it up into a suitable home for our growing family. I would sit with him while he planned everything out in front of me, walking me through his plans and asking for my professional eight year old advice. He never got to build that addition, his cancer advanced rapidly, and any money saved went straight into his treatment. My father’s passion for that project is one of the driving reasons I plan on studying Architecture in college. His skill and love for the industry inspires me. I look forward to carrying his memory with me, implementing our shared love into my studies. His death affected everyone in my family differently. My mom struggled after losing her husband, leaving her to raise three kids alone. She later remarried and found herself in an abusive relationship with a man struggling with alcohol abuse. Losing my father to cancer, and my mother's struggle with alcoholism led me to become self-reliant early. I didn't need or want my moms help anymore, especially in her current state. I began to work multiple jobs, quitting all of my school sports and activities to open up my schedule. Any free time I had was spent avoiding my own home, scared of what I'd face upon my return. The only thing that kept me hopeful were the letters my father left for me. He told me it was my job to help and protect my family. He said his death would never be an excuse for me to be anything but the best version of myself. His guidance gave me the courage to finally leave home, revealing to everyone the truth about what was really going on in my family. With my absence, and the support of my family, my mom quickly got sober and divorced her abusive husband. I thank my dad for saving my family. Without the foundations and rules he laid out for my life, and the standards he set as a husband and father I would’ve never been able to speak up. Even after nine years of him being gone, I'm able to see him everyday through the life I'm building.

I was used to the word cancer by the time I had learned to talk. My dad had been battling a very rare form of it called multiple myeloma, long outlasting any date the doctor gave him. Every life expectancy, “few years…few months…few days” but he always stayed. You could never tell that something was wrong, he walked around with a head full of thick brown hair and a smile on his face. But that never meant he was okay. His treatments were expensive and the bills were piling up. It forced our family into financial hardship and for some time we slept on the floor of my Grandma’s spare bedroom. It wasn’t practical but we had a roof, and each other. My Junior year of high school the doctors gave an unsettling announcement, the treatments were not working anymore. We sat on this information and looked for answers, until one doctor suggested a possible second chance. It was a new type of chemo called immunotherapy, no one knew for sure if it would do anything, but he took a fighting chance. My dad would have to spend a few weeks in the hospital while getting treatment to ensure his body could handle it. My mom spent day and night with him at the hospital. True love is laying in the most uncomfortable chair of your life, just to be close. I wasn’t allowed to stay with him or even visit so I was to stay in our little apartment alone. I was stuck in a constant state of anxiety looming over me. It was a challenge having to juggle being a student while knowing the current state of my father, but I managed. Art was a true escape for me, and always has been. My earliest memories were of me and my dad coloring with yellow crayons in my Elmo coloring book. Creativity always made my world at ease, and momentarily the weight of fear had been lifted away. During the weeks of his treatment, I drew on just about anything I could get my hands on, napkins, canvas, wood, even my shoes. It was a distraction, like nothing else mattered. To the shock of everyone, the treatment worked. Although his cancer would never be fully gone, due to multiple myeloma only being treatable, his charts showed significant improvement. The weight was lifted at last. He was doing well, sending me photos and videos of himself and his adventures at the hospital. Since being released he is still getting weekly treatments but his cancer is labeled as manageable. The loom of cancer keeping me up at night had finally gone away. Just last month, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was a shock to us all. I felt once again, the world shatter. It all happened so fast, taking her to doctors across town, discussing scary treatment words. Only a few weeks after her diagnosis she would undergo a mastectomy. I was enraged for her, for both of my parents and often thought: why? Why both of them? In order to decrease the chances of it coming back, she started chemo a few weeks ago. Watching my mother's once long brunette hair come out in clumps was not how I envisioned my last year of high school to go. Although I don’t know what the future holds, I continue to pursue art on a daily basis. Whether it be painting, coloring, or just simple doodles. Creativity has, and will always be my biggest strength through all the hard times.

I was As I sat in biology, clicking my pen absentmindedly, the lesson on photosynthesis blurred into the background. I couldn't even focus on the gossiping happening behind me. All I could think about was the truly terrifying bright red T-shirt I was wearing. I instantly stood and bowed at my teacher as I fled the room. I couldn't possibly wear this shirt, not today, not ever. That shirt brought me back to one of our random day trips when my mom smiled and said she loved it. I never imagined that day that it would be the last shirt she would ever see me wear. My mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer when I was in my freshman year and passed the end of my junior year. I believed that with every birthday wish, every coin tossed into a fountain, and every 11:11 I saw on the clock she would get better. Yet, as I watched her come home from treatment day after day, she gave me something far more lasting. The strength that I never thought I could grasp. She let me understand her inner thoughts and feelings. She taught me, since I was young, to always be able to change and grow, to never stay stagnant. So that assurance always lingered. As time passed, my duty to enact her lesson came to the forefront. I had to make a switch immediately, to make sure every day had a purpose, not only for me but for my mom and my little brother. I had to roll with change not only with resilience but with the kindness and authenticity that my mom instilled in me. My principal told me it was okay to be stagnant. I couldn’t hear it—couldn’t hear that stagnancy was part of healing. To me, it felt like losing time, like every second I spent in grief was a second wasted, a second my mom wouldn't want me to dwell on. As I marched home, I threw that shirt into the deep depths of my closet and my mind. I knew my mom wanted me to grow in ways she never could, to make something of myself, and to make sure my little brother had a happy, loving life. I couldn't let grief or stagnancy get in the way of that. As the older sibling, I had to be his source of strength. So I made that my goal over the summer. With my father working, I stayed home to make sure the house and my brother were well taken care of. I was constantly on the move, whether playing superheroes or cleaning the continuous mess of having a 7-year-old in the home. I learned to keep myself busy, but with this newfound hustling, I never focused on myself. One morning as I was washing the dishes, I looked down and realized I saw it. I saw the ruby red T-shirt that used to make me feel ill. Now it's just a shirt that reflected my mom's excited expression when she picked it up, rather than the worst day of my life. This realization had a double meaning, showing that I grew from my first state which was my intention. But I also learned that instead of seeing the bad and ignoring them. I need to look at everything possible and experience the little memories I had the privilege of getting to experience with her. Being stagnant is beautiful because when you stop and truly feel it, you can understand the love that still surrounds you every single day.

I used to think that everything happens for a reason. That no matter what hardship or pain you are meant to endure will inevitably make you a stronger person. Sometimes I wonder if this abstract, paradoxal claim was thought up by someone who wanted to validate their own painful history. Call me cynical. Call me pessimistic. I’ve grown to ignore common cliches like this one in order to continue to grow as a person, despite losing the most influential person I have ever known. I went back to school a week after my father passed. Regardless of whoever came up to me or talked to me, I was mentally not there. I didn’t want people to give me frowns in the hallway. Neither did I want people to mouth to me across the silent classroom, “I’m sorry.” I just wanted him. That first day I went back to my middle school, I was not paying any attention to what the teacher had to say about the lesson. The only thing I could possibly think of was the mental image that was ingrained in my brain, the one of my father, motionless, being rolled on a gurney to a large truck outside my house. The grief did not strike me until about a year later. After all, I was twelve years old and could not even fathom the concept that my father was gone. This was the only defense mechanism I seemed to utilize: denial. People would ask me, “How are you feeling?” I would respond with, “Oh… I’m fine.” Through years of therapy and the brutal reliving of all of it, I like to think that I have gotten past all of the trauma. Having to watch my father do nothing but pray in response to some doctor telling him that his cancer was incurable. Even seeing him rise out of the stale hospital sheets, only to gasp for air and go back to sleep for the remainder of the day. Then, finally one day, hearing the sounds of crying, silence… flatlining. However, I cannot simply forget or get past this trauma. I have learned that in order to grow as an individual, I must make peace with it and with the years to come in the future, all while being forced to overcome daily challenges without my father. I have also learned to nod my head and pretend to agree when somebody says a phrase that, for me personally, carries no meaning. Phrases like “everything happens for a reason.”

The summer before I went into 7th grade I learned that my father had multiple myeloma infecting his body. I learned that he had had it for the majority of my life and that he was getting worse. He had it years ago, went into remission, and now it was back with a vengeance. The first week of school he went into the ICU. He never came out. During the second week of school on a Tuesday, I was pulled out of my pre-algebra class right as I was about to start a quiz on exponent rules. At this moment I knew what I was being called out for: my dad had passed away. He was gone. A part of my soul had entered a different plane of existence. I walked through the halls holding back tears. Over the next several months I struggled with my grief. I fought daily not to let it take me over and drown me in sorrow. For months I refused to go to therapy thinking that it made me weak. I struggled with the overwhelming weight of loss that I forced myself to battle alone, never telling anyone I was struggling. I would go home and cry. I would cover my mouth with two hands to muffle my sobs, take off my necklaces so I had nothing to grab onto, and eventually become numb and stare at a wall. That was my routine. Wake up, put on a facade, go to school, pretend, come home, let the mask fall, cry, sleep, repeat. But come the following January, I couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t want to keep hurting. I knew I wouldn’t survive if I did. So I sucked up my fear and asked my mom to go to therapy. I was hesitant at first, thinking that it wasn’t going to work. That some random person wouldn’t understand my pain and help. I was wrong. I went to those appointments, telling people who asked why I wasn’t at school that it was a “doctor’s appointment”, scared of what they would think if they knew I was in therapy. I slowly got better. There were setbacks and moments I lost all faith in life, but that’s recovery; it’s never linear. Over time I grew to understand myself and others better. My relationships, communication skills, and ability to help others grew. I grew. I still go to therapy to this day, but my appointments come less often; now they are only when I need them. My grief still lives inside me, I just grew around it. That hole in my life will always be there. Sometimes that hole is more obvious than others. Prom, graduation, sporting events, my birthday, Christmas, thinking of my future wedding. Those are the times I feel it most, the times when a girl needs her dad. But instead of unbearable pain and grief, I feel a sense of nostalgia and sadness as I remember the time I had with him, not the time I lost. I think of how he turned his hair loss from chemo into a joke about him having “peach fuzz”. I remember the times when he and I would go to Home Depot, listen to Mumford and Sons and “Style” by Taylor Swift on the way home, and then build whatever needed to be built. I remember his warm hugs and kind smile; two things I got from him. When I look in the mirror and see him, and when my mom tells me he lives on through me I feel proud to be my Father’s daughter.

My world was flipped upside down during my junior year. I had just gotten back into the flow of things after missing 9 weeks of school with a lung infection called Histoplasmosis. My swim career was practically over after that, and I had double the school work to do in half the amount of time. Not even a full month of being back in school, I learned my father had been diagnosed with gastroesophageal cancer, stage four. This was out of nowhere and took a huge toll on my family since it was caught very late and the doctors said there wasn’t much they could do, but they would try their best. A month into my father’s treatment, my family was hit with even more devastating news. My mother was diagnosed with Breast cancer, stage two. Although hers was caught early, both my mother and my father have now both been diagnosed with cancer. It was now up to me to mature early and become an adult. It was time for me to start helping out. Both my parents had very similar schedules for their treatments, so I was put in charge of a lot. I was now driving my brother everywhere, having to manage schedules on my own, and still be available in case either of my parents needed my assistance. This was a very hard time as I was managing swim practice and studying for school at the same time, and by the time summer rolled around, I was just as busy as before with college applications and interviews for Congressional Nominations, Service Academies, and ROTC scholarships. Things took a turn for the worst when we found out that my father's cancer was not only incurable but also spreading. The doctors gave a gut-wrenching time frame of six to twelve months left for him to live. Now not only am I going to college in a few months, but now my mother, who, on the bright side, has finished her treatment and is off chemotherapy, will have to feel the absence of her oldest son and her husband. As of now, we have tried everything to make this situation easier for all of us. My father, unfortunately, has had to file for disability and will soon be relieved of his job at Asurion. We have had plenty of families help us out, and we are beyond grateful to all of them and all they do to help us try to keep a positive outlook for the future. I will be attending Texas A&M University in their College of Engineering and will be a part of the Corps of Cadets which will lead to a future career in the Air Force/Space Force. My brother will be homeschooled next year so that he can keep my mom company while still obtaining a high school education. Although this has been a very difficult and challenging time in our lives, we have in many ways learned from this experience and have not only become closer as a family but as a whole with our local community.

My Dad and I had a tradition of trying new foods. From Chinese Peking Duck to Israeli Kugel, every bite deepened our bond. We would find ourselves after a night out smelling like various spices with our stomachs stuffed to the brim. Although I meant that “full feeling” in our stomachs figuratively, this phrase cruelly turned into a reality. When my Dad was unexpectedly diagnosed with stage four Colon Cancer, he continued to make it a priority to take me out to weekly dinners. We continued to expand our taste palettes and try new meals. Eventually, my Dad’s tumors started to feed on not only his radiant personality but also his appetite. One night, I watched him push away a plate of his favorite dish, his eyes, once full of zest, now mirrored pain and fatigue. My Father’s passing triggered a massive upheaval, so I did not have much time to process my emotions. My mother, who had been a homemaker, faced the daunting task of managing our finances alone. Without my Dad’s income, it forced us to sell our dream home in LA and move back to Nashville. When my Dad died, so did our cherished tradition of discovering new food and cultures together. Food no longer burst with vibrant flavors, their meaning blunted and held no interest to me anymore. Instead, it reminded me of the tasteful memories we would never get to experience together again. A year later as I was sitting in my high school cafeteria talking about the tasteless, well-avoided school lunch, I started to ponder why there were only a few cuisines served to the student body. Students were not exposed to a lot of different cuisines like I was, and honestly, that bothered me. I wanted to share my value of exploring food with my peers, but felt lost on how to do so. The idea of talking to other people about food should have been easy, but it still caused painful memories that I was not ready to experience. Coincidentally after thinking about this for a few days, the daily school announcements came on. Our principal chimed on the intercom with what she called an “exciting announcement.” She mentioned that the annual school club showcase was next week. Then it hit me. I was going to create a club about food. On the day of the club showcase, I titled my poster “The International Food Club: Club for adventurous eaters.” Although this advertisement was far from perfect, I ended up having over 200 people sign up. This made the club the fastest growing at my school that year! That year, I held many meetings for our organization. Each gathering became a culinary journey, introducing a new cuisine for members to explore. Before we indulged, I took the time to research and educate my peers about the origins and significance of the dishes we were about to savor. What I didn’t realize is that through the food club, I was able to transform my grief into an incentive for change that created a whole new community of adventurous eaters. My Dad taught me that trying new foods was not just about satisfying our taste buds. It was about experiencing different cultures and learning about other people’s traditions and perspectives. Each dish we explored in the club wasn't just about the flavors; it was a blend of traditions, stories, and memories. Not only did my Dad inspire me to try something outside of my comfort zone, but he taught me that my passions and values can be applied anywhere that I go.

On a cold, rainy spring night, I lay awake in my bed listening to the train chug along behind my house. Overthinking and worrying kept me awake. “Why did this have to happen to me?” I asked myself. April 22nd, 2018 was a day that changed my life forever. I was a sixth grader on the way to the hospital with my mom and sister. My dad was losing his two-year battle with cancer. It felt like I was in a bad dream, going up the elevator to see him for the last time. The elevator seemed to crawl upwards at the speed of a snail on the way to the ICU floor. I was fearful of what I would experience that day, and I didn’t know what was to come in the days ahead. I hoped that I would pinch myself and wake up from this nightmare. In the next few months following his death, many friends and family came together to make us feel loved and protected, but that missing piece was still hot on our minds. It was a hard pill to swallow realizing that I would never be able to turn to him for help or advice ever again, but that was reality and I had to accept it. Thankfully, my mom is one of the strongest people I know. With her on my side, guiding me through acting like both my dad and mom, things were a lot easier. It helped build up a stronger relationship with my mom. Going into High School with no father figure was a hard hill to climb. Many of my friend’s dads would sometimes call me and help me with things sometimes, but most of the time I had to figure out things myself. Doing things around the house like mowing, weed-eating, cutting down trees, or even fixing the headlights on my mom's car was difficult at first. Teaching myself hands-on chores that my dad used to do was very helpful to who I am today. With the help of my mom, and my friends I pushed hard to get good grades and not make my dad's death an excuse. My boss also stepped up as sort of a father figure to me, teaching me consistency and how to work hard. My dad was as smart as a whip, and a very successful man that always took care of his family. I want to be able to support my family like he did, and his college education was a big reason he was able to do that so well. I believe that with the help of this scholarship, I can carry on the legacy of my dad.

After 12 rounds of chemotherapy, 3 months of radiation, and 7 brain surgeries, I’m only here because of God’s plan for my life. I am a brain tumor and traumatic brain injury survivor! In fact, I’m thriving! I’ve spent the past four years rebuilding my life, and the fact that I’m applying to college is a modern-day miracle. By freshman year of high school, I was already undergoing treatment for a brain tumor on my optic nerve, better known as an optic glioma. It all started with blurry vision and my quest for a cool pair of glasses. I ended up instead with an aggressive chemotherapy regimen, no hair, and no appetite. Chemo feels like a mild stomach virus along with random and inexplicable aches and pains. I would sleep all day and all night because sleeping was the only thing I could do, since I was so weak. My mom would help me bathe and my dad would carry me up the stairs each night. After three months, my MRI showed the tumor did not respond to chemo. Would you believe I was happy to stop the chemo even though it wasn’t working? The next step would be proton radiation. While the world was in a Covid shutdown, my mom and I would commute from Rhode Island to Mass General in Boston five days a week for proton therapy. Under normal circumstances, this commute would not work, but because of the Covid lockdown, we drove the otherwise impossible route. Radiation involved a scary-looking hockey mask and just a few minutes each day under the proton beam. My nurses were awesome, and we rocked out to some of our favorite tunes. Eventually, it appeared the radiation was working. My tumor had holes in it. Think Swiss cheese. Everything was going well, maybe a little too well, until it wasn’t. Swelling is a common side effect of radiation, but when the swelling is in your brain, it’s obviously life threatening. Months later after treatment, I went to sleep one afternoon and didn’t wake up. I was in a coma for four days due to my brain swelling. I had part of my skull removed. I spent thirteen days in ICU and of course have no memory of the catastrophic event. However, I do remember waking up in the hospital to my mother looking horrible, with deranged hair and puffy eyes, wondering what had happened. I would go on to recover unlike anything my neurosurgeon had imagined, even with additional brain surgeries as part of my healing. I have a shunt and a partial prosthetic skull, which gives me an automatic pass on rollercoasters. There is no medical explanation for why I’m here. God is good! I’ve had to relearn how to read, type, walk, bathe, hold a pencil or paintbrush, even brush my new locks of hair. I’m now active in helping my neurosurgeon raise money for brain tumor research, specific to gliomas. Whenever I’m back in the hospital for a routine scan, my mom and I drop off coffee gift cards for the families at ICU. Coffee is life, according to my mom. Throughout this journey, I became closer to God. I prayed whenever I could. I was baptized by my dad at church; it was and always will be the best day of my life! I don’t live with a prognosis in mind, and always plan to live life to the fullest. I’ve realized God is good all the time. Even on the most challenging days, I think “I’m still here because of Him.”

When I was six years old, my father called a family meeting. Thoughts rushed through my mind of what the reason for the summoning would be. A baby on the way? Am I in trouble? All the possibilities were cycling through my head, except one. Cancer. My mother had had cancer for as long as I could remember, but this time it felt different. “It has come back in your mother’s spine and hips,” my father spoke sensitively. “This kind is irreparable.” Sirens screamed through the dark night, as a cool breeze traveled through my hair. The eerie crescendo made its way up my childhood street. A stretcher crept up the dark wood stairs and entered my parents bedroom. My mother floated like an angel down, down, down. Her bones peeking through her skin, her eyes trying to smile. Then, they were gone. No more sirens, no more wind, no more mom. From this moment on, my life felt like a sliver of ice slowly melting away, always fearing when it would disappear beneath my feet. Anxiety filled my mind. My father began spending more time at work. At fourteen, my sister began scrambling to fill the shoes of a mother. It was chaos. The complexity of grief overwhelmed me. My father remarried a wonderful lady with a heart of gold. What was not to like? But I grew cold and resented her. My father could move on, but why couldn't I? The boulder of grief was growing; I was shrinking. I moved into a new home with new siblings, who weren't my blood, when the world shut down. I was alone every day and every night with the people I resented most. I grew restless. My fear of feeling stuck for the rest of my life grew stronger than the fear of loss. I was ready to start pushing the boulder. My stomach turned, my hands were sweaty, as I admitted to my father that therapy was needed to gain the strength to budge the rock in front of me. Acknowledge your feelings, have grace for yourself, and feel what is being felt. My therapist taught me how to allow myself to feel, and discipline allowed me to trust my emotions. My life turned from gray skies to blue and it felt as though the glasses of life were finally being cleaned. My words written on lined paper was my way of “getting my thoughts untangled” as my therapist said. Writing allowed me to see my thoughts and rearrange them to see the world from another perspective. My line of thinking was planned out right in front of me. I analyzed my thoughts and dissected them. Soon I could write about all the things I loved about every day. Disciplining myself to see the positive, working towards happiness. Life excites me, and my future gives me motivation. I transcend through life, enjoying every moment and learning all the lessons I can. I am thrilled to use all that I have learned in my next stage of life, my strength to persevere through any troublesome time, soak in the good and the bad of everyday life, and most importantly have my family by my side through all of it.