Starting high school is like stepping into mini snapshots of life. There are many different ethnic groups to interact with, peers to build bonds with, academic pressures, and life changing situations that you will face that correlate with the real world. You will learn how to deal with them as well as realize the world is extremely competitive. From the first day as a freshman until the day you walk across the stage as a senior, it is a race to see who will make it on top. With all of the fears of the first day of school and how slacking off is not an option, I was intimidated by high school.
I believed that I could do it. However, with school approaching within days my mother calls me into her room with the look of defeat and failure. She spoke to me
“Brittany, I’m so sorry”
I said, “Why, Mom? You didn’t do anything wrong.” Seconds go by and tears start to roll down her face.
She said, “I’m just so sorry, how could I ever let this happen to me” “Why now” “Why not later”
“Mommy? What is going on? I don’t like this?
“I have breast cancer Brittany.”
“No you don’t this is a joke right? No this can’t be real?” laughing and jokingly
“It’s not, would I ever lie to you?”
“Well that’s just what we have to do mom, I love you mom and I’m always going to be here for you no matter what!”
At first, and it felt surreal as if it was a joke. Once it set in a few days later that my mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer I was devastated and the thought why my mother? Why did it have to choose my mom? All these other others and mine had to be chosen? Was constantly running through my mind, I could not believe my mother had this deadly disease that can actually kill her. It felt like I was getting punished for something I didn’t do. It felt like bad karma was setting on my life and it was getting back at me for all the wrong things that I’ve done.
Especially when I’m beginning to write the next chapter in my book of life, like high school. I was only 14 years old when my mom told me this. Not an average 14 is usually told the night before they start high school that there mother has breast cancer. This setback had me scared to leave for school while my mother was at home. The thoughts of “what if something happened to her while I was at school” constantly ran through my mind, but I knew that my mother would want me to be strong for and my family because after her I am the next female. Being the oldest child in my family and my father at work, I automatically became the care taker of my younger siblings (a new