When Lilac asked me to talk about what it was like to lose a mother as a young person, I didn't know for sure how I would approach it. I decided to try to speak about how I felt and reacted to her impending death, her death and the immediate aftermath of her death. Naturally it is hard to bring back the exact feelings of a teenager. It isn't something I will every forget, but time has eased the pain.
Children know when something is seriously wrong.
They may not know what it is but they know something is wrong. As we sat on the veranda of my favorite restaurant, my mother explained to me that she had been diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. I can remember to this day the sudden silence all around me. The coo's of the Seagulls were silenced, I could no longer hear the sounds of the other diners at nearby tables and it was as if the very ocean waves stopped. I could hear nothing but her voice as she explained to me softly that she was to have surgery the next morning to have her breasts removed.