LIFE Lessons – Essay Category First Runner-Up1
Westchester Community College
Hometown: Valley Cottage, NY

I can barely remember a time when my family was one you could consider “normal”. Well, whose is? Nonetheless, there was a time when we had the typical, middle-class suburban household: Two parents, two kids- a boy and a girl- a house and a dog. I grew up in Sarasota, Florida. Neither of my parents made very much money, but they managed well with what they had.

My dad worked with telephones for a living. He was the guy you’d sometimes see at the top of a telephone pole, running wires. A dangerous job, but it paid the bills. My mom was a court clerk, which to me just meant she could write faster than anybody else’s mom. I had an older brother, and I hated him. The feeling was mutual. It took fourteen years and the loss of a parent to make us realize that we didn’t really hate each other. My mom was first diagnosed with cancer at age 37. Luckily, it was caught early and she came through it without undergoing chemotherapy or radiation. But four years later, we were not so lucky. She had a seizure at work and it was discovered that she had a brain tumor.

The word “cancer” doesn’t mean much to most eleven year olds, but I learned its meaning very quickly. “Cancer” meant that mom would lose her hair. It meant spending hours in hospital waiting rooms, praying she’d make it through another surgery. It meant worrying about money at the age of 11. My parents tried to hide their financial problems from us, but kids are more observant than we think. The word “cancer” meant becoming an adult before I’d even begun middle school.

The first tumor was removed. My mom went back to work for a while, but the cancer returned and she couldn’t work anymore. The family’s income was split in half and my dad began to work extra hours to help us get by. My mom started new treatments at John Wayne Cancer Institute in California. Every two weeks she would fly from Florida to Santa Monica, in hopes that they could help her. Being away from her family was hard, but finding the money to pay for airfare was even harder. It was a constant battle: My mom would undergo surgery and treatments. She’d be cancer free for a few months, and then it would just come back again, sometimes in the brain, sometimes somewhere else. But I never heard her complain. I saw her cry once, after she’d lost her hair. Shampoo commercials really got to her. But other than that, she smiled through the whole thing. She taught me that it’s possible to stay positive, even when you’re terrified. She met other cancer patients, and she taught them, too.

In September of 2000, three years after being diagnosed, my mom passed away. She was 44 years old. I was fourteen, and I started high school ten days later. My brother had just graduated high school, but postponed his college plans until the spring so he could spend what would have been his first semester working in town to help my dad and I make ends meet.

My mom had taken out a $10,000 life insurance policy, and without it we probably would have been desolate. But even with it, it was barely enough to take care of the funeral expenses, let alone the bills left over. After three years of seemingly constant doctor’s visits, chemotherapy, radiation, and brain surgeries, with very little health insurance, the debt was astronomical.

My brother left for college, but he had to work long hours to put himself through. Whatever money we had managed to save over the years for college was gone. Being fourteen, it had never occurred to me that you still had to pay the doctor even though the patient died. I always thought dying was one thing you could do for free. It isn’t. Every day after school I came home to find our answering machine full of messages from bill collectors, calling for my mother.

My dad was completely overwhelmed. He’d just lost his wife of 21 years, but took virtually no time off from work after the funeral. He went to work every day because he HAD to, but he would come home at night and fall apart. Before she died he was a 6’4″ tower of strength, but afterward I watched him crumble because he couldn’t handle everything that was being thrown at him. No one could. He was now a single father, deep in debt, trying to raise a teenage daughter on his own.

It’s hard to focus on schoolwork when you’re worrying about things like mortgage payments, and often, instead of doing my homework I tried to help my dad sort through bills. I started waitressing to help us get by. My grades had plummeted, and after graduation I didn’t really have a chance to consider college. I didn’t qualify for any scholarships, and we were still helping to fund my brother’s education, so it seemed out of the question for me to go too.

I kept waitressing in town after graduation. I watched literally every friend I had leave for college. So, about a year ago, I decided to pack my bags and move to New York. My mom was a native New Yorker, and her family still lives up here. Plus, I love theatre, and I figured I couldn’t pick a better place for it. I worked for a year at a local library until I got a call from the Life Foundation telling me I’d won a scholarship. So I enrolled in school full-time.

I’m now a theatre major at Westchester Community College and I’m thrilled to finally be back in school. It’s a little frustrating to know that all of my friends are seniors in college, while I’m only just beginning. But at the same time, I think I now appreciate the opportunity to learn more than I would have if I’d started right away. My friends used to complain to me about homework and exams, and I would think to myself, “You have no idea how lucky you are”. Now, thanks to Jon and the LIFE Foundation, I’m lucky, too. I plan to transfer to a four-year college after I get my Associate’s degree. Getting involved in theatre in high school had helped me get through the loss of my mom, and I hope to eventually work with getting other kids involved in theatre and the arts.

My family did what every family does in a tragic situation – we managed as best as we could. My mom missed my senior prom, and my graduation. She missed my brother’s wedding and my dad’s 50th birthday. My children will never know how wonderful their grandmother was. But in 14 years I learned more from her than anyone else I’ve ever known. And one of the greatest lessons came at the end of her life when I realized how important life insurance is. I know now that when I have a family of my own, life insurance will be a top priority, for their sake.

1 Note: This is an extended version of Jessica’s story and not the 500-word essay that earned her a LIFE Lessons Scholarship award.

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