Then Came March: When the Ground Falls Out from Underneath You

March started with so much quiet promise.

Spring was just around the corner, bringing that familiar, subtle smell of thawing earth and longer daylight. I had even successfully managed to keep a sourdough starter alive on the kitchen counter—a small, domestic victory that felt completely in tune with how grounded my life had finally become.

Between pulling straight A’s in school, finding peace in the pews every Sunday, and feeling connected to my home and family, I had such high hopes for 2026. For the first time in forever, the pieces were falling into place instead of apart.

And then, without warning, the universe delivered a brutal, merciless smack to the face.

My mom was diagnosed with brain cancer.

You always hear people say, “You never think it will happen to you.” You hear it in casual conversations, in memoirs, in waiting rooms. But until you are the one standing there holding the diagnosis, you don’t truly understand how absolute that shock is. It doesn’t arrive as a realization; it hits you like a brick hurled straight at your chest. The air leaves your lungs, and the world just stops.

It takes days, weeks even, to begin absorbing the gravity of words like that. Your brain simply refuses to let them fit into the life you were living just five minutes before.

School was going well. Faith was steady. Life, I genuinely believed, was finally good.

And now, standing in the rubble of that news, the only thought left echoing in the silence is: Now what do I do?