Losing a parent is one of the hardest things to face as a child. Yes, the time comes when you have to lay them to rest, but it shouldn’t happen as a sixth-grader. My mother passed away, unexpectedly, on January 12th, 2010 in a surgery we were told would make her back pain go away.

I remember that day, the last words I ever said to her were “I love you mom!” while she said it back. Little did I know at that time those would be the last words I would ever speak to her. That day at school just felt off to me in everything I did. In gym, the first hour, I got hit full face with a basketball and had my lips busted, I was spacey and felt diffrent. Then at recess a football hit my nose for the same reason. But I knew something was up the moment my teacher got a call sending me home with only 30 minutes left of the school day. She looked very unsteady and almost on the verge of tears when I was leaving. I remember as I was gathering my backpack, one of my friends asked me why I was leaving early, and I cheerfully explained I was about to see my mom from her surgery.

Dad grabbed my sister and me from school, and the whole car ride home was completely different. No one talked besides me, and Dad never took his eyes off the road. When we were going the complete opposite way of UNMC, I started to get panicky, the start of many attacks. Once we got home, he sat us down in the living room and told us. My sister was lost and was confused on what happen, she was a 3rd grader and did not really understand.

No one expected or even knew how I was going to react, not even me. Everyone knew how close I was to my mother. I never left her side at all, I was a mini her. Now that she was gone for good, part of me felt gone too. My dad said my brother was on his way over along with a bunch of other family members, and before he could even finish, I screamed at him, “You’re joking! Mom will come back! She always does!”. My dad was trying to calm me down because I was scaring my sister, but I refused to calm down. I was so enraged, I stormed off to my room and started to throw my pillows everywhere, along with my blankets and everything.

I was a volcano that had just erupted. I had lost my role model, my person who I would go do everything with, I had lost my mother. At age 12, I was alone. I knew what truly alone felt like. I had to go through something none of my other friends will ever have to go through until way later in life. In that moment I only knew two things, my mother is dead and will never come home along with, I was 12 and I am alone in this world.

That's just it. Everything else now is just a blur. It is a memory of mine that I hate remembering but I have to live with it.

Today, it is not as hard, but it is just as much. Mainly because I am going through so much as an adult that I would love to have my mother here to see. I think the one thing that hurts the most is being a dance teacher at my studio. I love it so much and it is what my mom would want for me, it is just hard sometimes to see my girls with their mothers coming in every week and knowing that is what I loved and would love to have again.