At the Top of Her Class With Big Aspirations, She Sacrificed It All for Her Family

But just a few weeks into her senior year in 2020, “my world was falling apart,” she said. 

Her once vibrant household was instead filled with dense silence. What felt like concrete plans for the future changed overnight, thrusting her into the caregiver role for her family and derailing her big dreams.

Her mother, Letecia, had experienced complications from rheumatoid arthritis and an infection that developed into sepsis. Her health declined quickly at the end of the summer. 

In just two weeks, she passed at the age of 47. Her daughter’s life became chaos. 

“Your mom is the first person you feel, the first person you know how to love, your first safety blanket,” Lena said. “So losing my mom like that, and so rapidly, it was just like, ‘Oh my gosh. What do I do? Who do I go to?’”

She was “teetering the line,” of truancy near the end of the semester, she said. Her near straight-A grades dropped dramatically. She was responsible for navigating funeral arrangements and grief before she ultimately gave up her college dreams to take care of her family.

A health crisis worsens

Letecia’s declining health plateaued during the pandemic. 

With an autoimmune disorder, she was hesitant about follow-up appointments and the risk of catching COVID-19. 

She had recently been treated for a urinary tract infection, but the antibiotics weren’t working — and the infection progressed to her kidneys and became sepsis.

The first day in the hospital, Lena sent an email to her teachers explaining she didn’t know how long she would be out of school. She asked if they could send her classwork ahead of time to keep her busy because she knew she wouldn’t be leaving her mother’s side.

“I tried to do (schoolwork) while I was at the hospital, but with doctors and nurses coming, I wasn’t able to fully complete it on time,” she said. “Between taking care of my mom and communicating with my dad and the rest of my family members (who only speak Spanish), it kind of fell through. (School) was the last thing on my mind.”

‘Constant reminders that everyone has their mom’

After her mother died, Lena was in charge of figuring out all the details involving funeral and cremation preparation. 

But the worst was yet to come. For about a month after her mother died, Lena didn’t go to school.

“I would just sleep all day,” Lena said. “I ended up having to cut my hair into a bob … because my hair matted so much from laying down the entire time.”

When she did return to class, her love for learning had evaporated. Her extracurriculars — band, volleyball, tutoring and volunteering — also disappeared.

“Everything that I had done school wise, anything in preparation for college, it was for my mom, … because I wanted to make (her) proud,” Lena said. “So losing her was just like ‘Well, why? Who cares? Why does it matter anymore?’”

She didn’t attend some of her classes for weeks, instead opting to go back home or take her car for a drive, listening to music until her head felt clear, or pulling over on the side of the road to cry.

At school, “there were constant reminders that everyone has their mom,” Lena said, describing the feeling as a “slap in the face.”

Besides, she thought, there were more important things to worry about.

Lena had to take on her mother’s responsibilities, doing things she knew nothing about – like keeping her brother out of trouble, paying bills and keeping up with chores.

Since her father didn’t know how to write the checks, he’d hand her the checkbook. She would set up doctor appointments, take calls with their insurance company, clean rooms and wash and fold clothing. But, she struggled – there was no one she could turn to for advice.

“During the first year, I definitely was not the best at it,” Lena said. “We missed a couple of bills, missed a couple of appointments. It was just hard having to keep track of what was supposed to be my final year in school and also having to make sure that everyone did what they were supposed to do.”

She had to raise her 15-year-old brother, too, fearing he would fall into the wrong crowd.

“My biggest worry was he was (going to start taking) drugs and start selling them just because money was tight after all the funeral and hospital bills,” Lena said.

Toward the end of her first semester, teachers begged Lena to come back to the classroom, otherwise she would need to pursue a GED certificate.

Sitting in a silent kitchen most nights, she completed a semester’s worth of work in a couple of weeks, right before the Christmas break. It served as a distraction for her first holiday season without her mother. Her teachers didn’t penalize her assignments for being late and she was able to save the semester, her lowest grade: 92%.

‘It was supposed to be a gap year’

By her second semester, guilt motivated her to stay on top of her school work, even though she still struggled with attendance.

“(My brother and I) were the first ones (in our family) to graduate high school or even go to middle school. So I just forced myself to do it,” Lena said. “My mom would want me to do well in school. This was her No. 1 goal for me.”

And she did, graduating with a 3.9 GPA and in the top 10% of her class.

But despite getting high school under control, her next steps became a point of contention. Her plan had been to attend a university in Alabama, about an hour away from home.

She remembers her father saying “We can’t do this without you. We lost your mom, now we’re going to lose you, too,’” Lena said.

“It really wasn’t that far, but it was just the anxiety of college and something’s (going to) happen if you do go,” Lena said. “I was so worried about how my brother was gonna end up. … So, I decided to take a gap year. It was supposed to be a gap year just so I could be there when he graduated.”

Working in a supermarket

Lena, now 23, works at a local Publix supermarket — the same job she took after high school.

“After I had graduated, I just started working. Money was my biggest motivator. We were falling behind on bills and my dad wasn’t getting as many projects, so I really just wanted to help,” she said. “I said … ‘School isn’t in the cards for me right now, but I can always go next year.’ It was always ‘I can go later,’ and later never came.”

She and her father were able to save enough money over the years for her brother to attend college in California.

“I realized how (loss) genuinely does affect your brain and how you deal with things as an adult – and sometimes (people) are not really understanding of that.”

She’s now on her way to becoming a store manager with hopes of moving to Atlanta.

“It wasn’t in my plan, but I made it work,” she said, adding that she’d love to go back to school one day, but fears it’s been too long. “I’m a little nervous that if I do go back, I’m not going to have the same skills I used to have.”

In the past five years, therapy has helped Lena heal, along with using social media to connect with other women who have suffered similar losses.

“I went online and started posting some videos and I had joined a Facebook group for grieving daughters and that definitely helped a lot, just having someone know what it’s like,” she said.

But sometimes, she still reflects on her favorite memories with her mom, including mother-daughter dates to get McDonald’s ice cream and days they would just nap together. 

She also reflects on her senior year and that sometimes people “don’t truly understand,” what it’s like to navigate trauma at such a young age.

“Sometimes I struggle with my memory, or just how I react to things,” she said, “and way back then, I would pick up on patterns, and I was really good at math and my memory was awesome. I realized how (loss) genuinely does affect your brain and how you deal with things as an adult – and sometimes (people) are not really understanding of that.”