Jennifer “Megan” Eubanks, a Mount St. Mary Academy senior, has used the death of her parents to become closer to God.
Born in 1994 to Roger and Linda Eubanks, she is the youngest of four children and lives in Benton. She attended Our Lady of Fatima Church and School. Following her parents’ divorce when she was young, Eubanks lived with her mother and siblings.
“My mom was really religious. We went to Mass every Sunday,” she said.
Linda Carmela Eubanks was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000 when Megan was in kindergarten. Her grandmother, Carmela Phillips, lived close by and helped Linda with the children.
“My grandma’s my mom, pretty much, in my eyes,” she said.
Even throughout her chemotherapy, Linda remained devout by attending Mass and going to adoration.
“She refused to miss adoration. … People would offer to take her shift and she would be like, ’Nope.’ She would get offended, actually, if people asked,” she said.
Linda Eubanks died in 2005 when Eubanks was in the fifth grade. Megan’s aunt and uncle, Jennifer and Jeff Ferrell, moved into the house she grew up in along with her cousins, Blake and Nick. Eubanks and her two older sisters, Angela and Anna, still lived at home while their brother, Roger, went to school in Fayetteville. Eubanks began high school at Mount St. Mary Academy in 2008 and in 2010 her father, Roger Alan Eubanks Sr., died of health complications.
“The one thing I can’t get over about is not telling my dad goodbye, not telling him that I loved him. … I feel like he died thinking that I hated him,” she said.
After talking with a priest, Eubanks gained closure about her father’s death.
“The priest just told me no father thinks that … he knows that you love him. He knows now, he is with God,” she said.
She attended a Search retreat her junior year where she said she gained a better understanding about the Church and how to better love others. She said for a while after her parents died, she was angry with God for taking them away, but at the retreat she discovered that God was actually helping both of her parents with their pain. She said God “took them from our family because he knew our family would stay positive and be a good example to others … I got closer to God.”
She said her grandmother, Carmela Phillips of Benton, is one of the most influential people in her life.
“My grandma and I are best friends,” she said. “My grandma would shoot me where I stand if I strayed away from God.”
If she met someone who was going through the same experiences of loss that she went through, she would explain it in the same way as the priest.
“They’re always still going to be watching you, they’re always still going to be there for you … God took them to relieve their pain,” she said.
In the fall Eubanks will attend the University of Arkansas at Little Rock where she hopes to study early childhood education.
“If you don’t have faith, what else can you believe in?” she said.
Click here to see the index of stories in Arkansas Catholic’s Graduation 2012 special section.
