After my father’s passing, we slowly tried to start putting the pieces of our shambled lives back together. My mother was still pregnant with my little brother, so that made it a little easier to focus on what seemed to be a positive future ahead.
Six short months after my father passed away, my little brother, Jack, was born. My mother decided to give my brother the same initials as my father, JPH (James Price Husong) and named my brother, Jackson Price Husong. Little did we know, Jack was going to be a spitting image of my father. The second my brother was born, my grandmother leaned over to my mom and said, “That’s Jim.” Jack is what gave us a reason to keep going on, even in the darkest of storms.
Jack was born in June of 2005. That coming August, I started six grade at Ascension Catholic School. This was exactly the change that we needed with everything else going on in our lives. Ashley and I met some great friends at school, while my mom was trying to work through being a single mother of Ashley, A NEWBORN, and I, all while trying to go to school to become a real estate agent. We also were able to purchase a house that was about 4 houses down from my grandparent’s house. 6th grade came and went. I was excited to start 7th grade, while Ashley started 5th grade.
We were settling in really nicely to our new school and all of our new friends at Ascension. We still missed our dad, deeply, but with so many new and exciting things going on around us, it made the transition easier. It was also really nice getting to see our grandparents on my mom’s side all the time, since we would enjoy dinners at their house most nights.
Jack was the light at the end of the dark tunnel for us and we were so excited to have such a happy little boy as part of our lives. He brought so much joy to all of us. My mom always said “he was the only man she needed in her life”.
One day after school, my sister and I walked into my grandparent’s house, where we would have dinner together. As we all sat down and started talking through our days at school, my mom told us she had to tell us something. She sat us down and began talking.
She started off by saying that she had been going to the doctor, and that the doctor had found something. With tears filling her eyes, my sister and I shared a look of concern. My mom finally decided to break the news to us.
“Girls, I have cancer.”
