Just before the first anniversary of my initial brain injury, life presented a new challenge. I found that my usually very healthy Mom had become very sick. On April 30th, 2019, I brought my Mom to the hospital. That day was the first day we heard the word “cancer.” 

14 days later, on May 13, 2019 - my 27th birthday - she passed away from an aggressive, rapidly developing cancer. My world got turned upside down again, the truest light of my life, my rock, my comfort - gone.

The day before she passed was Mother’s Day. A friend brought a keyboard into the hospital so that I could play and sing for her. In retrospect, this is one of the greatest gifts I have ever been given, because it led me to discover my greatest purpose.

When my fingers touched the keys... it felt like I could breathe again. It felt like I had been holding my breath for the past two weeks in the hospital with all the tension of uncertainty, of waiting for diagnosis, of taking notes and doing the best I could to keep my brain intact enough to keep up... 

But when my fingers swept across the keys and I started singing, I felt home again. It was like the light inside me spread to my whole body and into the room. It gave me a deep, visceral feeling that this was what I was meant to do.  

As she rested, loved ones and I sang the songs that she and I had been singing together all my life. I was able to give back to her just some of what she gave to me. It was then that I knew music was so deeply a part of me that it would always be with me, through my brain injury, through trauma, through grief, and beyond.

We planned a funeral that was full of hope. We celebrated her life’s accomplishments with joy and her spirit with glorious music. I struggled to handle the stimulation and had to take sensory breaks, but honoring her with my gifts felt like one of the most important things I would ever do so I sang and played piano at the funeral. During this time, I found an inner strength I had not yet known. Though I resented how my concussion had taken so much from me, I was immensely grateful for the extra time with my Mother that it had given me over the last year.