05/15/2025
May 15th. The day everything changed.
15 years ago, I woke up in Slovakia while on a once in a lifetime trip to Europe. I was 20, just a college girl with a backpack and no phone because back then, we actually left our phones behind to be present. I had flown to Germany to visit my roommate turned friend and we took a road trip to Slovakia for her cousin’s wedding. It was supposed to be a fun weekend. I had no idea what was waiting for me.
That morning, I decided to check my email on a hotel computer. What I found was 14 messages from my dad subject lines like “911,” “CALL ME NOW,” “COME HOME.” My heart dropped.
I had no phone, no way to call. I begged the hotel, my friend’s mom, anyone nearby but I kept hearing “no.” And for hours, I sat quietly at their family dinner table, pretending everything was normal, while inside I was falling apart, not knowing who was hurt or what had happened. I just knew something was deeply wrong.
Eventually, hours later, I finally reached my dad on a borrowed phone.
The words still echo:
“Your mom died.”
I threw the phone. Everything blurred. It was the kind of pain that splits you in two the kind you don’t fully feel in the moment because you’re in shock. I sat in the back office of that little hotel all night on AOL Instant Messenger, telling friends, trying to plan how to get home, numb and heartbroken. The next morning, my friend’s parents drove me from Slovakia to Hungary, where I caught a flight back to Florida alone, jet-lagged, and shattered.
And if that wasn’t enough, my grandpa passed just nine days later.
May has never been the same.
It’s wild how a single day can divide your life into before and after.
And every May 15th, I wake up remembering that day like it just happened.
RIP Mom. You are missed.