A 20-year-old college student has to make a life or death decision for her mom.
Four women sat in front of me, asking all kinds of questions about my major, goals and views on leadership. The young blonde on the left, she’ll pick me to be her resident assistant, I thought. Her bubbly personality seemed to match mine, and she responded to my answers with the most interest.
A few days later, standing in the campus mailroom, I opened my acceptance letter. It said, “Sue Schoenherr in Esperanza Hall will be your resident director.”
Not who I expected. Or hoped for.
During the interview, Sue Schoenherr peered at me over the frames of her reading glasses. Her face showed little emotion. When she did smile, it was brief. She had long silver hair. She was old enough to be my mom.
Little did I know, that is what she would become.
As a junior in college, I left sunny central Florida and went home for the holidays like I had done both years before. I always looked forward to seeing my mom in Ohio and celebrating together.
On Christmas Eve, we made our traditional birthday cake for Jesus. Mom made a wish to give her all to God. That evening, she came into my room and asked if she could read the children’s book I wrote that semester one more time. “It’s lovely,” she said. “You’re so creative.”
Then, she gave me a small jewelry box. Inside was the wedding ring my father had given her. “I want you to have this,” she said. “It’s one of the only things of value I own, and I want it to be yours.” I remember thinking, Why is she giving me this now? But I gladly accepted it, and I’ve worn it ever since.
After a couple weeks of my mom attempting to make home-cooked meals, sharing memories and playing card games late into the night, I got ready to go back to school on a blustery night. My mom prayed over my trip, my semester and then for my future husband—even though I wasn’t dating anyone. That's odd, I thought. She usually just prayed for safe travel. But I took her warm wishes and kissed her goodbye. She was supposed to drive me to the airport that might but was too sick to do so. I cried the entire 50-minute drive to Columbus.
That was the last time I would talk to her and see her, fully alive.
On the Sunday before that Christmas, we had gone to our small, local church, which met in a conference center. We always helped set up the rows of chairs, and my mom would sit in the same spot—an aisle seat, fourth row from the front.
Eight days later, I’d go to our church and there would be a casket up front. On Mom’s usual seat, her Bible lay open to her favorite scripture. "An excellent woman who can find? She is far more precious than jewels." (Proverbs 31:10)
Just like my mom had hoped and prayed, within a few years, I would meet Ben, a handsome hipster playing the guitar at Shammah, an outreach ministry for young adults. When I found out that he was three years younger than me, I thought, I can’t date him. No way! When he found out that I’m sort of pretentious and set in my ways, he thought, No way! We avoided each other until one thing brought us together: our shared love of pie.
We served slices of Perkins apple and cherry pie at our wedding two years later.
I have never felt more beautiful, more seen, more alive than when I’m with Ben. He teaches me about grace and unconditional love. But every day, I have to consciously choose to let him in. To let him become my family. At any moment, I could lose him too.
I never expected to lose my mom when I was 20. But with one message from my older brother, everything changed. I had just landed in Orlando, on my way back to college for the spring semester. Taxiing on the plane, I read this text, “What is Pastor Christa’s number?”
He had found Mom unconscious that morning. Her lips were blue. She wasn’t breathing. Pneumonia had spread throughout her body. The doctor said she might not make it through the night.
As the gravity of the situation sunk in, I found myself in Sue Schoenherr’s apartment in the dorm. I had to go back to Ohio. My fellow RAs and my friends helped me pack a suitcase. They asked if I needed a funeral outfit. I froze. I didn’t know. Sue and my best friend Abby drove me to the airport. At 4 a.m., I boarded and headed back to where I had been the day before.
At the hospital, my mom was breathing through a ventilator.Over the next few days, she was placed on dialysis, then in isolation to fight a MRSA infection. Her body was shutting down one organ at a time. My brother couldn’t be there. He signed the power of attorney over to me.
I had to decide what to do.
A few months earlier, Mom had visited me at college in central Florida, and she went to an ethics class with me. That day’s topic: the Terri Schiavo case. Life-sustaining treatment. Later, when we were alone, Mom told me, “Tori, I wouldn’t want to be kept alive on machines.”
Now, seeing her unresponsive in bed with tubes puffing air into her lungs—her voice kept ringing in my ears. She wouldn’t want this. Her parents refused to accept it and her sisters got angry. But I knew what needed to be done. I ordered the machines be removed. For the next 90 minutes, my mom clung to life. And I wondered—did I make a mistake? Could Mom have survived? Did I kill her?
After she died, I became numb to the world around me. Food had no taste. Sleep brought nightmares of her body rotting and me looking her in the eye saying, “Mom, you’re dead. I made the decision. I’m sorry.”
My family urged me to stay in rural, small-town Ohio. “Take some time off,” they said. I responded with a harsh, “No.” My life was in Florida, at school. Mom would have wanted me to finish.
But in the following weeks, I maxed out a credit card, skipped classes, didn’t complete assignments and ran out of a biology lecture in tears when the professor mentioned MRSA. I got my first boyfriend, hoping to feel something—anything other than anger and grief. My family cut me off.
C.S. Lewis describes grief perfectly—like "living with an amputated limb." That's how I felt, and somehow, I had to learn how to live without my limb, my mom.
My mom had been my best friend, my biggest cheerleader. I needed her now, more than ever. But she was gone.
And slowly, gently, Sue Schoenherr filled that role. I met with her every week, and I started to notice how much she was like my mom. They were the same age, and both went to college for home economics. But most of all, Momma Sueshowed me love. Her handwritten notes, prayers and hugs met a need that I wasn’t even aware of.
That summer, she sat across from me at a Mexican restaurant and told me that her husband, Bob, was called to be the pastor of a church in Sioux City, Iowa. I had no idea where that was, but I nodded and smiled. With tears in my eyes and love in my heart, I hugged her and whispered, “See you later, friend.”
The following Christmas season foundme and my best friend, Abby, at loose ends. Her parents were living in Malaysia. My dad had been distant for years. My mom’s family was still angry at me. My brother was tied up in his own grief.
Not knowing where else to go, Abby and I drove 27 hours from Florida to Iowa to visit Momma Sue. After three years down south, I missed the changing seasons. I needed to have Christmas with snow.
When we got here, I fell in love—with the weather, the history, the beautiful old homes lining the upper stretch of Jackson Street. Even though Sioux City was at least five time bigger than where I grew up, the community retained a kind of small-town charm that I found all too alluring. Driving around, I would forget that I wasn’t in Mt. Vernon, Ohio.
Sioux City reminded me of home—without the pain.
Back at college a few days later, I found myself crying in the shower, grieving a loss again. This time not for a person but a place.
Before my mom died, I had wanted to live in Central America. But the following spring, I packed my life into Rubbermaid totes and mailed them to Sioux City one week after graduation. With no job. No plan whatsoever. All I had was a place to stay—in Bob and Sue’s basement. I booked a flight, and Abby came along to help. If she wouldn’t have been by my side, I wouldn’t have boarded the plane.
I was scared. I had lost so much. I didn’t want to open up to loss again.
Over the next few years, I found a job that I loved—teaching in the dual-language program at Irving Elementary—and I completed my master’s degree. I made friends and met Ben. We got married and moved into a small, three-bedroom house of our own.
But I’ll never forget my time spent with the Schoenherrs’ and how they welcomed me into their hearts and lives. After awhile, they started calling me their daughter. I called them Mom and Dad.
In their home, I began to heal and learn how to be a part of a family again.
I would walk through this again and again to get the results that I have today.
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Tori Albright is the world languages program coordinator for Sioux City Community Schools. She enjoys practicing yoga and writing. She is married to her best friend, Ben. Together, they enjoy traveling and listening to all genres of music.
Ode is a storytelling series where community members tell true stories on stage to promote positive impact through empathy. It’s produced by Siouxland Public Media.
Our next show is Friday, October 6 at ISU Design West in downtown Sioux City. The theme is “Home.” We’ll have live music by Angela Lambrecht and Shawn Blomberg of Ultra Violet at 6:30 p.m., followed by stories at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10 in advance; $15 day of show.
