9 years ago this week my Mum passed away at the young age of 56 from the wicked disease Cancer.
There isn't a day goes by that I don't think of her, she was a wonderful, wonderful Mother and we were very close and had a huge Mother-Son bond.
She helped me through many trials and tribulations in my life and always stood by me and gave me 100% loving support, always, through good times and bad.
If I had an idea to do something, a dream, an ambition, she would be the first person to be telling me to go ahead and do it, to do everything that I always dream to do, to travel and see the world, without never having a negative thought about any of it.
I miss that enormously, I really do... I miss her constant laughter, her smile, her positive outlook on everything, her wonderful advice, her ability to tell me not to worry and that everything will be o.k. even when I felt that all hope was lost, but most of all I miss her unconditional love.
I know that she is still with me, still around me, still loving me, unseen and unheard, and guiding me in the right directions in my life but it's just not the same...
I miss her daily telephone calls to me asking me how I am, exchanging our exciting news and telling me how much she misses me, calls that always ended in tears, tears that are filling my eyes as I write this... the same tears that appear whenever I talk about her to anyone.
My Mum still exists in my phone books and diaries, in fact I can't bring myself to erase her name or telephone number from my records because in my mind she is still at the end of a telephone line somewhere waiting for my call... and I feel that if I delete her name and number it would mean that I would be deleting her from my memory in some way, and memories are all I have of her now.
Words can't express how sad I feel this week... 9 years have gone by so fast and her passing still feels very fresh in my mind;
the shocking news, the telegram from my Father telling me to get home to England as soon as possible, my Mum's wish for me not to be told of her illness (her last gift of love to me), the loneliest flight that I have ever had in my life on an airplane, getting home to England only to find out that my Mum had already passed away and not getting to say Goodbye to her, endless days and nights of never ending tears and the feeling that my heart had been ripped out of my chest and replaced with a 100lb weight.
I helped my Dad arrange everything in England and returned to Brasil a month later, which was when a black hole opened up for me and I went headfirst into 3 long years of very deep depression, pain and loneliness.
I had never thought about the possibility of my Mum leaving this world, I guess because she was still relatively quite young... I just never imagined it.
Now I watch old ladies in the street and think to myself that I will never get to see my Mum in that way, I would never be able to see her as an old lady.
Her image is frozen in my mind:
A very beautiful woman with blonde hair and blue eyes, always wearing stylish clothes, always looking great. She would enter a room and all eyes would turn to look at her, she had the most incredible aura and people were captivated by her presence.
She had the biggest heart and would help everyone she could, she never walked past someone collecting for charity without giving some money and standing and talking to that person about how great it is for people to give.
And she had the most wonderful laugh, you could hear her laughter from another room and the only time I ever saw her sad and depressed was when she lost her own Mum, my Grandmother, and I didn't understand so well at the time as I was still a child, but I understand totally now how she felt, as I have now gone through the same experience.
The feeling of total loss, heartache, numbness and sadness is a feeling that you would never experience again or before in your life and it has changed me completely, I'm a totally different person now from when my Mum was alive and after going through such a traumatic experience I feel that nothing truly bad can ever touch me again because I have already been through the worst and nothing at all scares me anymore, I've become fearless - something that I never was 9 years ago.
So on this very sad week, and at the end of this post, I am leaving a small memory, one of millions locked inside my head:
It is the memory of being in the family car, my Dad is driving and I am sitting in the back seat behind my Mum (like I always did).
I am looking at my Mum's blonde hair blowing in the breeze coming from her barely open window as she is singing along to a song on the radio, I reach out and touch her hair with my small fingers, she turns around and smiles at me, an enormous smile with all the love in the world, a Mother's love, I smile back and I feel safe and so, so loved...
I love you Mum, forever and always - Goodnight, sleep tight and don't let the bugs bite.
