An Essay to Describe Painful Experience
For the first couple of years of my life, it was just my mom and I. I never went anywhere without her. I tried to stay the night at my grandparent’s house when I was little, but I would end up going home because I would freak if I wasn’t around my mom. When I was about three, my mom attempted suicide and was admitted into the mental health ward at Bryan West Hospital. The doctors didn’t think she was going to make it through the night, but she did. After my mom’s attempt, my dad decided to come back into my life and fought for custody, which resulted in joint custody. My mom spent most of her time in bed or watching T.V. I used to ask her why she had so many scars up and down her arms and why she never ate much for dinner, she never gave me an answer she just told me not to worry about it.
When Everything Changed
Monday, October 10th, 2011, was my mom’s day with me. She was supposed to take me to school and pick me up after. My mom and I were supposed to jam out to music on our drive home from school, then go home and eat cookies and watch cartoons just like we did every day we were together, but this day was different. My mom never picked me up for school that morning. She never picked me up after school. She never picked me up again. The morning of October 10th, 2011 my dad took me to my counselor's office instead of school. I sprinted down the hallway, confused but ecstatic I didn’t have to go to school. I saw my family all sitting inside my counselor’s office. The first thing out of my mouth was “where’s my mom,” no one responded. I then sat down on the rock hard carpeted floor with a giant smile on my face. My dad and grandma started to cry, my counselor then proceeded to tell me my mom died. My smile quickly vanished, I sat there with a blank look on my face. I laughed because I thought it was a joke, there was no way I lost my best friend and never got to say bye.
My mom’s viewing was October 12, 2011, I scribbled Taylor and mommy onto the face of my favorite barbie doll, then gently placed the doll in her casket. Along with my barbie, I placed some Cream Soda Dum Dum suckers and the book Goodnight Moon into the casket as well. Cream Soda suckers were her favorite and she used to read Goodnight Moon to me every night. I knew my mom like the back of my hand and something about the way she looked just wasn’t right.
As I hovered over her casket and stared at her lifeless body, her skin was pale and her lips were a faded pink I asked my dad what was wrong with her eyebrow because it looked different. He looked me in the eyes and told me “I might as well just drop all the bombs at once, her death was ruled a suicide, she shot herself.” I was only nine at the time and didn’t know what the word suicide meant. My family told me at the funeral, I was running all over the place laughing, acting like nothing happened because in my mind it didn’t happen. I refused to accept I lost my mom. October 13, 2011, they buried her. I placed a bouquet of fake white daisies on top of the casket. With tears streaming down my face I asked God to take care of her, then watched them slowly lower her light pink casket into the gaping hole in the ground.
After the funeral, I moved in with my dad and stepmom. They started abusing me and told me it was my fault that my mom ended her life. Every day I asked myself why I was not good enough to keep her here. I didn’t understand why she left me. I lost myself, I lost interest in everything I loved. I went to school a week after the funeral, my grades dropped and I pushed everyone away. I wanted my mom back and I wanted everything to go back to how it used to be. I started lying and things at home only got worse. After six years of fighting with my dad and stepmom, my stepmom told my dad that he had to pick between me and her, he picked her. I moved out of my dad's house and moved in with my grandparents. Losing my mom was one of the hardest things I’ve been through, but it led to such beautiful things. Me moving out of my dad’s house couldn’t have ended better.
It Still Hurts
In May of this year, I had to get a passport for my trip to Mexico in August, when they told me I needed my mom’s death certificate my heart skipped a couple of beats. I got the paper from my stepdad and read every single word. Reading the certificate was brutal “ Self Inflicted Gunshot Wound.” “Immediate cause: Penetrating Gunshot Wound Head With Hemorrhage And Obstruction Of Brain Tissue. Multiple Skull Fx.” “Pronounced Dead October 8, 2011, Time Of Death 2:50, and Time Pronounced Dead 3:01 PM.” Reading the certificate was overwhelming, but made me think about how far I’ve come in the past eight years. I learned a lot of different things from losing my mom, the most important being I can’t let my past control my life. After my mom died, I went through stages where I didn’t leave my room and refused to eat. My freshman year I still refused to accept that my mom had passed away, I didn’t go to class, I was a solid D student, I spent more time in the principal’s office than I did in class. After getting out of a toxic household and receiving help from my grandparents and best friend I found myself again. Moving to Seward changed my life. I met my best friend and he opened up my eyes to the world. A little over a year ago he convinced me to let him take me to my mom’s grave. I dreaded going, I didn’t want to and I didn’t think I was ready to go. After going I realized I needed to let go of my past, it will always hurt that she's gone, but there is nothing I can do about it.
Current Life
Just a couple of months ago I finally went to my mom’s grave by myself, it was a monumental step in my life but I have felt so much better since. My grades started to improve, I started to challenge myself more in school, and more importantly, I started to feel truly happy. Healing is a process, I’m not going to wake up one day and miraculously be perfectly fine. I will never get over losing my mom, losing a loved one isn’t something someone ever just gets over. It’s okay to miss my mom and cry at times, but I can’t throw myself a pity party and expect to get special treatment because of what happened.
I can’t let losing my mom affect my grades or my future goals in life. Every person in this world has a choice: they can allow every difficult experience to break them in life or they can learn from it and grow. I don’t always have to stay strong, I have the right to be sad. Some days are randomly harder than others, graduation is coming up in a couple of months and all I’ve been able to think about is the fact that my mom won’t physically be there watching me receive my diploma, but I refuse to let it stop me from passing all my classes. There are a lot of lessons I gained from losing my mom, but not letting my past control me was by far the most important.
