Olivia Harmon--The Circle Of Life

When someone close to you dies, it hurts your soul. Whether it be a natural cause, such as disease or old age, or it is something less natural like a car accident. It’s an unnatural feeling to have a conversation with someone you love one day, just for you to mourn them the next. I felt that exact feeling when my grandmother died of Stage 4 uterine cancer.

My grandfather married my grandmother in February of 2014. She was from Ukraine and moved to the United States after their marriage. Once she arrived, she had to relearn everything. She learned English, how to drive, grocery shopping, and most importantly, how to function in an American family. My whole family welcomed her in our lives; she was a sweet, kind-hearted woman who loved and respected everything around her. We were all excited to have a grandmother who was so culturally different.

It was a little different for me. I was adopted from China, so I have a different cultural background than the rest of my family. My grandmother, Olena, and I began to do more things together as I matured. When I was younger we would go to Hobby Lobby and shop and go to eat together, but as I grew up and became a young adult, we did more cultural things.

One of my most vivid memories of her is when we went to a Greek festival. It was at a church in Montgomery, Alabama, somewhat out by itself. We went with my grandfather and browsed around all the baked goods. Most of them were Eastern European goods, or in her case, Ukrainian. My grandmother pointed out all her favorite desserts to me, telling me what they were in her native language and what they were in English. We walked around for the better part of an hour and ended up purchasing about a dozen snacks to take home. Once we got back to the house, she proceeded to show me how to make some of her traditional Ukrainian cheesecake.

It was during this particular visit with my grandparents that I realized I was being treated like more of an adult than a child. My grandmother was never the stereotypical grandmother who baked cookies with an apron on. Instead, she was more of a mentor and a role model. She always treated me and my sister with the utmost respect and love, and in turn, we loved and respected her for being such a gentle soul. Her gentleness and sweet nature were what we were used to when hearing from her, which is why my family was shocked when she was diagnosed with Stage 4 uterine cancer.

My mother and I were driving around town, running errands when we first got a call saying something was wrong. We pulled over to the side of the road so we could understand the doctor better. We were told at first that they found something abnormal on a scan and that my grandmother would need to go in for further testing. My family was not too concerned at the time, but that would soon change. My grandmother did not understand English all too well, and my grandfather was hard of hearing due to military service. This meant that my mother went to a good deal of their doctors' appointments to ask questions and take notes on their behalf. This was where we got some of the worst news one can receive.

The scans my grandmother took showed her uterus filled with cancerous tumors, along with the lymph nodes. We were told this would require immediate surgery due to the severity of the cancer, and how quickly it was multiplying. The issue was that this was during COVID, therefore many hospitals and medical institutions were still being very cautious with whom they treated. COVID was the reason my grandmother did not get checked out by a doctor earlier; she was told not to go into the office unless necessary. With the given circumstances, it took just over a month for her to be scheduled for surgery.

In August 2021, my grandmother had her uterus removed along with her fallopian tubes and some lymph nodes. It took a while for her to heal, as there were some minor side effects with her surgery, but about three weeks later she was back up and running. When she went back to her oncologist for her post-op check-up, she was told most of her cancer was gone, but that she should have chemotherapy to get some troublesome spots. For the next treatment, she was steadily going to chemotherapy appointments. They were hard on her and my grandfather; she was depleted of her energy and my grandfather tried to do all he could to ease her pain. After a while, she was told to do a couple of months of targeted radiation. Once she finished that, she was tentatively told she was in remission and was given the green light. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, believing this whole ordeal was over. The family celebrated her recovery with her, without knowing it would be around a year later we would be gathering in remembrance.

My grandmother was essentially, the only person there for my grandfather. Everyone in my family and extended family visited him when they could, but other than that he lived by himself, hours away from any family members. We knew that if she were to pass, he would have a difficult time adjusting to living by himself. Everyone went back to their normal routines, keeping the thought of her cancer on a back burner. It wasn’t until a couple of months later things began to look bleak.

She went back to her home country of Ukraine to visit her son, and when she came back she had a PET scan done. She had wanted to visit her son for a while, but because of COVID, and then the war between Ukraine and Russia, she was not able to go. She had a trip scheduled about a year prior; however, when she got diagnosed everything had to be put on hold. This trip she was taking started in October of 2022, and she came back just over a month later. When she got back, she had to go in for another post-op scan to check up on everything.

The scan came back and there was a good deal of cancer metastasized in her lymph nodes and liver. She, along with the rest of the family was in shock. We all thought that she would have been in remission. Olena and my grandfather were devastated.

The doctors said there was an experimental drug she could use to try and ease her pain, as it had exponentially increased in the short amount of time between getting back to the country and her scan. My grandfather agreed and she began to take it in December of 2022. This drug, while it may have eased her pain some, had a good deal of side effects. She became more lethargic than she had been during chemotherapy and much weaker. By the end of January, she was taken to a better place.

January 27, 2023, around 10 AM, my mother called my father to tell him she had passed. All of the grandchildren were at my grandfather’s house trying to keep busy when my dad and aunt rounded us up to tell us that she had passed peacefully. We all packed up and made our way to the hospital, where we met the rest of our family and said our last goodbye. From the hospital, everyone met at my grandmother's favorite lake.

She had always been a very active person, someone who loved to keep her mind and body entertained. One of the ways she did that was by walking around a neighborhood lake. The whole family met there and we all did a remembrance lap, stopping to reminisce about the caring person she was. It would be at this lake that we would have a memorial service for her a couple of months later. Many of her beloved friends, most she met at that very lake, would be in attendance to mourn the loss of a radiant light.

Cancer is a bittersweet thing. In my case, it took away a wonderful person, someone who had lots of life ahead of her. That does not go without saying I did not learn from her experience. The entire time my grandmother was in pain, or tired, or anything ailed her, she still smiled at everyone around her. She still made a conscious effort to make everyone around her happy and cared for even if she was not at her best. She showed me unconditional love and selflessness, something that is rare. She showed me what it means to truly love your family, and I strive to glorify her memory in any way I can.

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Hello! My name is Olivia Harmon. I am a 17 year old student at Thompson High School; an upcoming senior. I am the eldest of my family. I have a younger sister and two puppies. The thing that sets both me and my sister apart is the fact that was are both adopted from China. Being of foreign descent and one of the oldest granddaughters, my late grandmother and I had a special sort of relationship that she did not have with other grandchildren. We would bake Ukrainian goods together, go to Middle Eastern markets, and even went to the Shen Yun dance in Birmingham, Since I was old enough to have a good relationship with her, when she got sick with cancer it was very harsh in a way. Her death was really the first interaction I had ever had with death and terminal illness so her sickness opened my perspective a lot on the harshness of life.