Facing Loss While Abroad

The chance to spend a semester abroad was an incredibly opportunity and has been an even more incredible experience. My impression of studying abroad involved this idea that I would change and grow and while I think that's true it also seems we forget to calculate that home can change too.

Last week, I woke up to a text from my mom asking me to call her at noon. Having just woken up I didn't really process what she wanted to talk to me about and closed the message to scroll through social media before actually getting out of bed (a guilty habit that I'm sure many can relate to). Right near the top of my feed was a post from my cousin, it was a picture of my Uncle and the caption read "Miss you already". In that instant I understood what my mom wanted to tell me.

My uncle had been battling cancer. Weeks ago my mom told me that he had been moved into hospice care and something unsettling sat in my chest. I thought about him every day saying that I wanted to see him again, that I was going to see him again. When I read that post, that feeling in my chest dropped.

I got up and slowly dressed, wishing I could stay in bed. As I sat down at the kitchen table with my breakfast there was nothing I could do but continue to scroll through my phone and within moments I saw another post of condolences of someone else I knew and cared about.

When my brain connected the dots it was too much. It felt like my throat was closing up and that my heart was about to explode.

And I started crying into my cereal. I cried silently, not wanting to wake up my host parents, glad the kids had already left for school. I cried because I still did not fully understand why or what had happened. I cried because I knew when I walked out the door I couldn't be crying, that I had to get to school.

But I cried on the bus. I cried as I walked to school. And I cried when, after just having pulled myself together, a friend asked if I was okay.

Out of privacy and respect I leave the second name anonymous and as important as these two people are my main focus is to reflect on what it's like to lose people you care about when you feel a world away.

Some, maybe many,

people do not experience the loss of a loved one during their semester abroad but loss can happen at any time.

Grief is different for everyone, mine consisted of semi continuous crying in public and in private. I cry as a consequence of a thought or memory or the plain unfairness of losing such beautiful people from my life. My heart felt like it was being compressed and expanded at the same time and my throat felt closed up with tense, unrelenting muscle keeping it in place.

The fact that I lost not one, but two people, and learned about their passing almost simultaneously was also very overwhelming and I felt guilty when my heart would focus on one and not the other. They both deserved all of my grief but I had to split it between two and that in itself was heartbreaking and tear inducing.

When you are abroad, it is likely there is not anyone around you that knew who you lost. You can not make an impulsive five hour drive, you can't walk across campus and wake up a mutual friend. Everyone is kind and is willing to listen but you feel alone and you also feel horrible for not being home to be with the ones you love.

I didn't talk to my family. I couldn't pick up the phone. It didn't seem to be enough and I knew I wouldn't be able to speak more than five words without losing it. I didn't know what to do about my friend, who to reach out to, when to reach out. I felt undeserving.

One day felt like a week, my brain going through so much, trying to figure something, anything out for things to make sense but in the end I knew there was only so much I could do.

I knew the reality: I would miss two services. I would miss countless hugs and "I'll miss you's". I would miss two goodbyes.

And that feeling plagued me.

However, though I regretted not being there, I never regretted being here and I think that was very important.

My last memories of both of these people were happy. Smiling, laughing, joyful, and as I've worked through the sorrow I have made peace with maybe that is how it was meant to be for me.

My host mom told me she hoped my sadness would not ruin my time left in Italy and I know that it won't and maybe sometimes it is a more active decision, a challenge, but that's okay.

I travel and see beautiful things and I find myself hoping that they're seeing that sunset, watching that ocean, feeling spring bloom with me. And I tell myself they know, they know how much I love, and care, and how much I miss them.

I sent my emails and made my phone calls and they were met with love and appreciation.

I still feel a thread of guilt. When I return home I will seek those hugs and stories and closure that everyone will have endured a month before. I will feel selfish in seeking closure but I hope that I am wrong and will be met with understanding instead.

I will think about the two graves I want to visit when I return to the States. I think about it every day and how much I need it.

Losing someone is difficult and painful. When you're abroad the biggest difference is that you just feel so damn far away and as strained as your heart already is, it's also trying to stretch across the ocean and cling to the people you want to be with.

Should that change wanting to see the world? Wanting to study or work abroad? I don't think so. I think the biggest injustice we can do for those we've lost is to throw away our dreams in fear. In the worlds of Henry David Thoreau:

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined."

Live the life you've imagined.