Last spring, I began to actively apply to various jobs posted on career sites such as Indeed and LinkedIn. Landed interviews at companies that had marketing positions and even car sales, both entry level since I didn’t have previous experience in those areas. I also applied for positions such as administrative assistant, editor, others with social media titles.

That continued through the next months and then in early September, my mom had a medical emergency. Despite having no signs of a problem even the day before, she had to be revived several times in the ambulance and was then in ICU for the next 10 days. She had been out so long as EMTs tried to revive her, that it caused too severe damage to her brain. When we visited each day, she never showed responses to us or awareness that we were in the room. Mid-month, my mom passed away and it was ruled that she also had a block somewhere between her heart and brain, causing the emergency to begin with.

Since then, I’ve been helping my dad with errands and bills. We had to go into Philly for one financial matter. On the way home, we were in a minor accident on I-95 southbound, luckily while traffic was only moving about 30-35mph. The airbags didn’t even deploy, but a tow truck was needed for my dad’s car and the other vehicle could be driven away. So we were down to my car for over a month, as I continued helping with errands.

The holidays were difficult, first season without my mom. She had some chronic health problems over the years, yet had been able to get around and do errands. So, it was a shock for us and everyone else in the family and among my friends and family friends. She had just turned 64 this past summer. We all miss her.

~ C.