CHARLOTTESVILLE — Eastern Hancock High School senior Makayla Whyde will be the first member of her immediate family to graduate from high school. Though many members of her family will be there to cheer her on at graduation on Saturday, June 5, her parents won’t be.
Despite her young age, Makayla has already lost both of her parents, who struggled with substance abuse, to overdoses.
As the soon-to-be graduate prepares for her future, her parents remain with her. Makayla visits her mother’s grave at Park Cemetery and has held on to the ashes of her father, who was cremated. Recently, she got a tattoo in honor of them. She also tries to use their mistakes to make better decisions for herself.
“Their addictions make me want to do better than that,” Makayla said. “I hear all the time that there are certain ways I act like my mom and certain things about me that people think remind them of my dad, and I don’t want that. I don’t want my future to look like that. When I get older and end up having kids and getting married, I want to give my family a better life than I had when I was a kid, because I don’t think anyone should be put through the things that I have.”
Whyde’s life began changing at age 9, when she was getting ready to start fourth grade. Her mother died after a drug overdose, and Makayla went to live with her father. Her parents had split up several years earlier. Their relationship had ended partly due to Makayla’s father’s abuse of prescription drugs, but another relationship ended up leading her mother down a similar road.
“My mom didn’t start doing drugs until she met her husband,” Makayla said. “…She would sleep during the day and be up all night. Her husband was extremely abusive to her. There were countless times when I’d see him physically abuse her, and I always saw my mom in pain or crying.”
After her mother died, Makayla tried to avoid her father when he was using drugs. She lived with him for about a year, attending school outside the county. After that, she moved in with her aunt, and she eventually wound up at Eastern Hancock. Throughout the rest of her school career, she lived on and off with her aunt as well as with her older brother.
“My dad never really came back into my life after he dropped me off at my aunt’s house,” Makayla said. “Maybe a few times here and there, but it wasn’t for longer periods of time. He passed away in December of my junior year.”
Junior year was already difficult, Makayla said, with a heavy load of honors and advanced-placement classes. One night, she got a call that gave her a bad feeling before she even answered the phone. It turned out to be news she had been half-anticipating for some time: Her father, too, had died after an overdose.
“I knew that it was going to happen, but at the same time I didn’t know when,” she said. “Just the timing of it kind of threw everything off. I got really behind in school work after missing a week after he passed away, with finals coming up. But I still managed to finish my whole junior year with all As and Bs.”
Experiencing grief during childhood can be a uniquely painful experience. According to one study, only about 5% of children in the U.S. experience the death of a parent before they turn 18. It can also be a major obstacle to future success, the organization Children’s Grief Awareness says: Kids who have lost someone close to them are more likely to struggle both socially and academically. But Makayla was determined to avoid that.
“I knew that both of my parents wouldn’t want me to be failing because I’m mourning them,” she said. “They would want me to do better and make them proud, so that’s what I’m trying to do.”
Still, she thinks about whether her father’s overdose was intentional, and what might have changed if he were still alive.
“He tried to get ahold of me that Thanksgiving, and I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t want anything to do with him,” Makayla said. “There are times that I think maybe if I would have answered his phone call, something would have changed, but there’s no way of knowing that, and I can’t put that kind of pressure on myself.”
Now, Makayla is beginning to reconnect with her father’s side of the family, most of whom she hasn’t spoken to since he died. Makayla said her relatives are proud of her for graduating and want to see her walk across the stage.
Makayla also hopes to help others through her future career. After considering several different careers in the medical field, she has decided she wants to study psychology in order to help other people struggling with difficult family situations. She plans to start taking classes at Ivy Tech Community College in the fall and eventually transfer to a four-year university.
Greg Judy, one of Makayla’s teachers at Eastern Hancock High School, described her as “probably one of the hardest-working students that I have ever taught.” As part of the school’s JAG program, he said, Makayla helped organize service projects for local nonprofits and competed in a regional employability skills competition, where she won first place.
Judy has high hopes for Makayla’s future success in the medical field.
“I have no doubt that she can do that if that’s something she’s wanting to do,” he said.
Finishing her high school career amid the COVID-19 pandemic was difficult, Makayla said, and she was happy to return to in-person schooling after months of virtual classes. She said the small, close-knit environment at Eastern Hancock helped her succeed throughout her school career.
“I’ve talked to everyone at least one time since I’ve been there. It’s my little home away from home,” she said. “As much as I’m ready to leave it, I surely am going to miss it.”