If you were in class with Phoebe Hodge, you would see a girl who’s always smiling, a girl who always has a joke, who will always make you laugh. 

You wouldn’t see a girl who was dealing with the loss of her father. 

But the fact is, Hodge, like many other college students, is juggling schoolwork while also handling grief. According to the National Library of Medicine, one in three college students ages 18-23 has lost at least one loved one in the past year. Grieving can affect a student in multiple ways. 

“It has definitely affected my schoolwork and how I manage it,” said Hodge, a Moraine Valley student. “I used to be really good at doing my homework. Now it’s hard for me to be able to get myself to do anything, let alone schoolwork. Weirdly enough, a lot of energy is taken out of me from grief.” 

Students who are grieving know the feeling–that gut-wrenching feeling of knowing someone is slipping away. That feeling, after the fact, of everything being in slow motion, feeling numb, like you’re on autopilot. The moments when you try to get your life on track again, but the thought of opening up your books or homework is unbearable–and even if you get the book open, you end up staring, seeing just words on a page. The feeling of not wanting to get out of bed, and having this fear of losing someone else.

Hodge’s father was diagnosed January 2024 with pancreatic cancer. 

“He was so filled with life all the time, so extraordinary, a musician, super successful in his job,” she said. “One of those guys you see in movies, and I was just like ‘not him.’”  She remembers the moment of denial, a moment of thinking “maybe they got it wrong.”

If you are a student experiencing grief, what now, what’s the next step? Do you go to therapy? Do you deal with it on your own?

If the loss was a family member you were close to and had a strong bond with, you should seek counseling before it starts affecting your mental health, says clinical intern Alexandra Hollandsworth. Going through grief can affect you not only mentally but physically as well.

Moraine Valley counselor Shanya Gray says you can’t just expect to be back to normal in a few days: “You’re dealing with a whole new world, and you’re trying to process this great loss that you’re trying to now figure out ‘how do I continue my existence with this loss in my life?’”

Gray said she starts seeing the effect of loss in a student when they don’t attend class and they let their grades slip. She explained how we oftentimes have “expectations that you just need to get over it and keep moving, keep pushing, because as a society we often say that that’s what you’re supposed to do.”

“It’s hard for me to be able to get myself to do anything, let alone schoolwork. Weirdly enough, a lot of energy is taken out of me from grief.” 

Moraine Valley student Phoebe Hodge

Students may be resistant towards therapy for multiple reasons such as the thought of “how can someone who didn’t go through that situation help me?” 

To this, Hollandsworth said, “No matter how young you are, your therapist has seen enough life experiences to help you through whatever you are going through, and the education as well.”

What about those who have resistance towards therapy because of their culture? 

“Societies and cultures all grieve differently,” Gray said.  “The culture in the United States is almost as if ‘OK, the person died, we might give you a couple days, maybe a week, and then you can get back to normal.’”

Grieving within spaces and communities and cultures and groups is very healthy, according to Moraine Valley director of counseling and holistic student support Jessica Contreras. 

“Some individuals may not search for counseling directly because in their culture they may have certain rituals and things that kind of create that space of grief,” she said.

Hollandsworth said the circumstances of the person’s passing make a difference in whether therapy is needed. “I would never personally say to someone ‘I don’t think you need it, deal with it yourself.’” 

Moraine Valley students can find help dealing with grief through the counseling department, which offers short-term personal counseling at no cost to currently enrolled students.

Contreras says when counselors meet with a student, it becomes a moment for the student to process everything when they don’t have the ability to do so themselves.

Ayanna Smith, a journalism student in California, wrote about the number of students who are currently dealing with grief, saying it might be wise for more campuses to have defined policies about missing school due to a death. 

“While I was lucky with my professors’ willingness to accommodate me, I don’t know how I would have handled an opposite response,” she writes. “A campus liaison who could help with contacting professors and finding resources would take that stress off.”

Moraine Valley’s counselors said they often see students dealing with loss.

“Moreso, they’re coming in for stress, but then we realize there’s this underlayer of grief,” Contreras said. 

They have never done a presentation specifically about college students and grief, but they said they would be interested in setting up such a presentation in the future.

If you are in a grieving journey, there are some good things to know. The first and hardest thing to do is accept that the person is gone. “I looked at myself in the mirror and told myself he’s gone and he’s not coming back,” recalls Hodge.

Next time you’re in class, just know that there’s a chance that someone is grieving, and if you are that person, just know you’re not alone. Help is available.

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FEATURED IMAGE BY PHOEBE HODGE

ADDITIONAL PHOTO BY CATALINA ROMO-MARTINEZ