My Mom Unexpectedly Passed Away. Taking Time Off From Teaching Was the Best Decision During the Worst Time of My Life
And I’m Coming Back to Teach My Students About Grief
On August 16 my mom, dad, husband, and I went out to eat to play trivia as one last hurrah before the school year started, and I got a little busier. Trivia was our thing. In June we had won at this same place, and we were back to redeem our title. We, however, got near dead last. Nevertheless, we had a blast as usual and during that trivia night, I declared that we had the best summer ever, and we had a lot to look forward to with my husband and me in the process of adopting a baby. I hugged my mom goodbye and told her that I loved her.
The next day, my husband, 4-year-old son, and I headed to the mountains to spend a long weekend with friends, squeezing the life out of summer before I headed back to work on August 21.
My mom was dead by August 19 at 11:30 PM, exactly 30 minutes before my birthday.
In a whirlwind of events, on August 18 my mom went in for, what we thought, was routine surgery. We have a family history of brain aneurysms. I had the same surgery 4 years ago on my unruptured aneurysm, and my mom had similar surgery on her first unruptured aneurysm 12 years ago. The…
