My First Semester of Grief as a College Student: Series Introduction
Introduction to a guide to navigating early grief in college, written by a recently bereaved college student.
Starting when my mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in November, I prepared myself for the kind of slow, heart-wrenching wasting away I’d read so much about and seen in all the sad movies.
We all knew pancreatic cancer was terminal. But she had promised that she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. She told us that she would always be honest with us, but that she was definitely planning to be around for the foreseeable future.
Turns out the future is not always foreseeable.
Her death threw my family and I into a process of grief and trauma that none of us was prepared for. My dad kept repeating, “This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.” And it wasn’t. Her treatment was working. Her doctors were ecstatic about her progress. Her tumor markers had been falling.
She died five days before classes started for my sophomore year of college. I returned to campus two weeks after walking out of an emergency room without her. I wanted to be home, but the university told me I had to be back by then or I wouldn’t be able to return for the entire semester. So I made it happen. Hardest thing I’ve ever done.
And now that I’m through the first semester, I’m writing about what I learned and all the things I never realized. This series is for both college students and young adults who are processing the death or terminal illness of a loved one and for those who hope to support young people through this difficult process. The grief experience is universal in many ways, but young adults and college students face unique challenges navigating a field so closely associated with older adults.
This series consists of four parts:
Part 1: Your Friends
Friends are great, but grief can put even the closest friendship through a test. In this part, I’ll explore what I learned when my best friend told me that my grief was crowding her out of the friendship and what to do when none of your friends understands your pain.
Part 2: Academics and Your Professors
Some people approach grief by throwing themselves into their work, while others find it hard to focus and be productive. In this part, I’ll look at how I found comfort in connecting with my professors and how I learned to balance getting the grades I wanted with acknowledging my profound brokenness.
Part 3: Living Away from Home and Taking Care of Yourself
If you live away from home, your family and friends may not be there to make sure you eat, sleep, and get out of bed in the morning. Combine this with feelings of isolation or separation from your family and you can see why bereaved college students are especially in need of support. In this part, I explore how I took care of myself as well as the special forms of denial and isolation I experienced living 350+ miles away from the rest of my family.
Part 4: Identity and Growing Up
The death of a parent or other important family member can make you feel as though you have to grow up fast, even if you’re supposedly already “grown up.” Even though I was past the legal age of adulthood and had already lived away from home for a year, my mom’s death changed how I saw myself and my role in the family. In this part, I reflect on trying to take her place and care for my brothers even though I still feel like a child myself.
I hope this series will help fill a gap in writing on grief in college. If you have any suggestions or comments, I’d love to hear from you below or on Twitter @lifeinapinkhat.
