Mum.

Get ready folks, it’s about to get waaay intense up in here...

I’d like to think I am pretty open on here, I mean generally I’ve spoken about some of my successes and some of my failures, but there has been one thing I haven’t spoken about on here, like, at all, so here goes.

I’m an orphan.

Not like the curly red-headed singing-type orphan, but pretty close (not really). Specifically speaking, I’m what they call a maternal-orphan, in that my father is still living, but my mother died before I was 18. I was 15 to be exact. And it happened nine years ago today.

I’m not telling you guys this for sympathy or to get all the “I’m so sorry for your loss” comments, I’m telling you guys this because my mum was such a huge part of my life, and since this blog has become a pretty big part in my life as well, I felt like I needed to open up about this, so that if I ever mention her again in the future, (which will likely be frequent) you will all know who I’m talking about and why I constantly speak about her in the past tense.

It was October 28, 2004, and it was not something any of us had seen coming. I mean that in the sense that she wasn’t sick. She didn’t have cancer, or any other kind of terminal disease, she was perfectly healthy. So then what happened? The doctor’s told us she had suffered a brain aneurism in the brain stem, which basically means the major hub of all brain activity had sort of, “exploded”. She was only in the hospital a week before the doctors determined she wasn’t going to get any better. Then the morning of October 28th came; we got the call at around 2:30 in the morning that we needed to come in, because, as my dad put it, “it was time”.

It was a really hard time for me after that day. To know that I won’t be able to share some of my really big moments with her really sucks, but I’ve grown to staying positive every day. I believe that even though she physically isn’t with me, she is still with me in spirit. When I miss her, I allow myself to miss her, and then instead of getting depressed, I remember the good memories and smile.

This one time, I tried telling her this joke, (naturally I thought it was hilarious) and I could barely finish the punchline before cracking myself up. She just chuckled and rolled her eyes. At the exact moment I saw her roll her eyes, I started to take a drink of Dr. Pepper. For some reason I thought it was hilarious that she didn’t think the joke was funny, and I ended up spitting Dr. Pepper right out of my nose and she was directly in the line of fire. My mum laughed more at that than the joke I told. It was so her.

There's so much of her in me, and I'm so proud to have that. She was a journalist, you know. She loved to laugh and tell jokes, and she could read HP and the Goblet of Fire in one sitting (and did so twice that I know of). She inspired me while she was here with me, and even more now that she isn't.

So today, this post is dedicated to her.

Miss you, mum.