Separating self and struggle

After two and a half years of surgeries, chemotherapy, and dwindling odds, my mother died early on a Monday morning in November. My dad broke the news to my brother and me, and we went on a hike to the stream a few blocks from home while someone came to take away her body. The song of the ice-laced brook was the same as it had been for all of my 10 years, and the leaves ranged from umber, to scarlet, to sunflower yellow just as they did every autumn. When I returned to school on Wednesday, my desk in my fifth-grade classroom was still there, and all of my classmates looked the same as they had on Friday. My life, however, was irreparably changed, and I did not know where to focus all of the energy that had been spent before on hoping that my mom would get better. Almost 11 years later, my curly hair and dark eyes still mirror hers, but her influence as my mother and best friend runs much deeper.