The Flashbacks That Hit After the Loss of My Mum

I was just 18 years old when my mum passed away from cancer. Ever since then, I wonder, “What she would think of me now?” I’m now 25 years old, and since my mum left us, I’ve been through way too much. It’s almost too much to comprehend myself sometimes.

Would she think I was still her little girl? Would she think I was so brave for going down to surgery for my second liver transplant back in 2015? Would she believe this even though I cried so much that my throat was raw once everybody had left me alone for the day? I cried because I was on my own when I needed her the most.

Would she hold me close and tell me, “Everything will be OK?” Would she envelope me with one of her comforting “huggles” like she would do when I was young after I found out that one of my closest friends died?

Did she whoop with joy and dance around with all the other angels up there on the night my fiancé of five years proposed to me in front of all of our friends on my 21st birthday? Did she join in with the celebrations that night as we danced away?

Will she be with me the day I choose my wedding dress just as she did all those years ago with my other sisters? Will she help me pick “the dress” and dance with my dad after our first dance as man and wife?

Will she be hugging me the day I see two little, blue, tell tale lines on the strip of a pregnancy test? Will she be there?

As I approach the sixth year my mother is no longer with us to join in on the panic and the magic of Christmas, I ponder these things. Knowing my mum won’t be there for every milestone of my adult life hurts me so much sometimes that I can barely breathe as the realization hits me. The flashbacks hit me like I’m caught up in a stampede.

They flash their way through like an endless film role of each and every part of that morning. I can’t help but feel and smell the whole thing, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I have to let it pass, and each time it happens, I end up crumbling up and hurting inside.

Then, I have my moment. It runs to stop. Time slows down.