Superhero

Editor's Note: In a powerful video, photography senior Megan McNally visually recollects the pain of witnessing her mother's battle with cancer. Though she still grieves her mother's death, McNally describes the greatest lesson she learned through the tragedy: that love never dies.

Every child has fantasies, and at some point we all believed ours to be true.

The superheroes and the princesses really existed — they were as real as Mom and Dad. But as time passes, life snuffs out our childhood longings, or at least it did for me.

It wasn’t until my mother was diagnosed with cancer that I began to yearn once again for the superpowers I believed I once had.

I thought long and hard about sharing this autobiographical piece. My mother’s death is something I very seldom talk about, and it still causes me incredible pain.

But working on this project has helped me heal, and it’s my newfound hope that Superhero can — even in some small measure — come to the rescue of others like me.