We were startled awake as her breathing suddenly changed around 5 a.m. My father, brother, and I shot out of bed, where we had been sleeping alongside the portable hospice bed my mother was confined to all summer. Rushing to her side, we knew those were her last moments. Three hearts raced; one heart stilled. Hand in hand, tears streaming down our faces, we said our final goodbyes. When my mom was diagnosed with a glioblastoma four years prior, my 15-year-old was paralyzed with fear. Seeing my youthful, vibrant mother with a scar running down her newly bald head felt like a contradiction. My childhood innocence vanished, and instead came instant adulthood as I did all that I could to support my mom. I took over household duties, attended her doctors' appointments, and held her hand during chemotherapy sessions, drawing as much comfort from her touch as she did from mine. As her condition rapidly deteriorated the summer after my freshman year of college, I spent each day and night at her bedside, caring for her as she had always lovingly tended to me. When I began my sophomore year just two weeks later, I felt lost. While many of my neuroscience peers charted their future paths and fantasized about becoming physicians, having experienced the devastating reality of medicine, the last thing I could think about was watching patients suffer. I was turned off from medicine due to its failure to cure my mother. In my fragile state, I could not imagine working in a field with so much sorrow. It was only years later that I gained a new perspective. My friend aspiring to become a neurosurgeon suffered a brain aneurysm. Shortly after recovering, he wavered in his decision to become a neurosurgeon, fearing that there would be times when he would fail to save the lives of patients just like himself. In my effort to reassure him, I told him about the immense value my mom's physicians had added to her life, despite not being able to save her. I described the meticulous care and endless compassion with which they treated our whole family, granting my mother the best possible quality of life and helping us all cope throughout her illness. I realized in that moment that the medical system had not failed my mom, as my grief had initially blinded me to assume. Rather, while my mother was originally given only 6 to 12 months to live, she lived over four years—an additional 1,562 days—filled with countless treasured moments. Each additional day, no matter how mundane or extraordinary, was a medical triumph and a personal gift. The medical profession, which I had long associated with devastation and loss, had actually been an inspiration of promise and hope. As I convinced my friend to stay on his path to medicine, I was overcome by the realization that I yearned to begin my own. While my perception of one monumental "failure" drew me away from medicine, my recognition of 1,562 small successes pulled me back. The hopelessness that had been holding me back has transformed into a deep appreciation for the medical field—with both its moments of devastation and restoration—as I enter my second year at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. My profound awareness of the extent that illness affects not only each patient, but also their loved ones, grants me a distinct sense of fortitude and purpose as I embark on this path toward maximizing quality of life: the life of the patient foremost, as well as the lives entangled with theirs.