It was already unfortunate that we had to go through losing mum. But I soon realised the timing of it was even more unfortunate. Mum died in October. Christmas was December. New Year's came next. After that, it was Mother's Day. Then St Patricks day. Then my birthday. Then her birthday. Then it would be a whole year round the sun, and we'd be stuck repeating the same cycle. Starting and ending with her anniversary every time. Every day just wondering how we were going to make it through the next occasion without her.
A new year meant I was going into the first year that wouldn't physically include my mum at all. I had read online before that our bodies replace their cells every seven to ten years or something like that. Did that mean in a few years I'd have a body that never hugged my mum? I hated that thought. I'd spoke to Lorna about it too. At my last counselling session before Christmas, I was riled up, to say the least. I was thinking about a time when mum said something really funny. But I couldn't imagine the way she would say it. I couldn't hear her voice in my head. It had only been a couple of months and I already couldn't hear her voice anymore.
I couldn't even imagine her walking. When the cancer started really spreading, she would get the sharpest pains down her legs, the whole way to her feet. It was so hard for her to walk, dad had to push her around in a wheelchair. Eventually, she refused to leave the house because she couldn't risk running into someone and having to explain why she visibly couldn't walk. When I imagined my mum, she was in her wheelchair.
I was petrified there would be a version of myself in a few years that wouldn't remember the little details of my own mother. Lorna said this was probably because my mind was so consumed with grief. She said that once some time had passed and I wasn't so overwhelmed anymore, my thoughts would be clear again, and I'd still be able to picture her. I hoped she was right. I worried I might not even be able to describe her to my future kids, the ones she wouldn't get to meet. That was the thing about losing a parent young. All the big experiences you were meant to share with them, you'd be alone for. Or at least you'd feel alone.
I know this because when I was in primary school, a girl in my class lost her mum in a car accident. Her mum happened to be friends with mine. And when she heard, she got emotional and said she couldn't stop thinking about her little girl. She said her daughter would have to go through so many things in life without her mum by her side. Her first heartbreak, pregnancies, marriage, she listed. She didn't know at that point I would have to face all those things without her too.
On New Year's Day, I finally opened up the Christmas gift Angela had given me. Knowing it would most likely be something sentimental, I had been putting it off. Inside the small red gift bag was a little charm for my bracelet. It was a little silver angel. A smile tugged at my lips. This woman was special.