Death. It’s a shadow that surrounds all things in life because no matter how good it is, one day we will die. The inevitable aspect that the person sitting next to you will one day be a corpse are thoughts most try to steer clear from. But no one can run forever. Because one day someone they know will die. And the shadow of death will be that much closer.
“Everything that happened it was…feelings can’t express how hard it is to lose someone like that. Who raised you your entire life. I didn’t really know my dad, and I didn’t really feel like I had anywhere to go. Like there was nothing. There were no memories of her besides a few photos from when I was a kid. I was…scared, ” sophomore Harley Hopping said.
“It was pretty bad. It was hardest for my brother because he had the strongest connection to my mom. But it was hard to believe that my mom, out of all people, was going to die.”
Losing a parent is hard enough. But for Hopping, the pain of her past doesn’t stop there.
“Second semester of last year I went to Texas. I left for six months and I moved in with my brother. I started doing drugs and stuff like that, and I thought my mom was going to be okay. I thought she doesn’t miss me she doesn’t love me. I came back to live with my mom though because I was being abused with my brother.”
Dealing with the loss of a loved one is always hard. But for Hopping, it’s the experience of seeing her mom alive the last time that haunts her mind the most. The scar of watching her mother die.
“It was November 6, 2013 and I got checked out of school. It was on a Wednesday. And, I thought it was just another visit to go see my mom and she…she looked like she was having a hard time breathing and…this lady came in and was talking about funeral homes and funeral arrangements. And her breathing just started to slow down bit by bit. And it finally looked like she just stopped. I saw my uncle cry for the first time.”
Regrets are what haunt Hopping. The regret of not being able to fix the broken relationship between her and her mother before she died.
“She was telling me how much she loved me and how much I had no clue. That…she actually cared. And now of all times now, I see that she actually…that I actually meant something to her. Before I thought she’s just the one that had unprotected sex and I was a mistake because my whole life she treated me like a mistake. Before, she treated me like I was nothing. She use to beat me. I have scars from that woman. And…it was all my fault. Now I actually see what kind of pain I put her through. I kind of want to take it all back.”
The sinking feeling that she can’t fix the mistakes made twist Hoppings’ heart daily. And even though it happened months ago, she still has a long way to go before she is healed. She has a long way to go before she can forgive herself.
“Everything just kind of sunk in after awhile and that’s when it really hit me…I was never going to see her again. I thought it was a nightmare. My little sister would describe dreams as being full of happiness and pleasantness, and it wasn’t like that. It was a nightmare. And I can do absolutely nothing to take back every single word, every single thing, everything. I can’t take that back. And it just kind of hurts on the inside.”
