If there's one thing in life that we always have and that's a choice. We have the choice in life to make bad decisions, the choice right our wrongs and so on. We are faced with so many choices daily that it can become overwhelming at times. But what do you do when the choice is no longer yours?

When life has taken that freedom to decide for yourself where do you turn, who's there to help or listen when you desperately need them to? None of us control when we're gonna die or even how, unless it's by our own doing.

But to only be in your thirties, still have children to raise and so many years left to live and know your life won't be as long-lived as you'd hoped for is ungodly scary.

My mom was diagnosed with a rare heart disease roughly four years ago called Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. It is an inherited disease that's uncurable. It's a form of heart failure. We never knew for sure what had caused this.

Truly thought inherited this illness, that was up until 3 years ago when my mom was then diagnosed with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (S.L.E). Lupus is one of the cruelest and unpredictable and devastating diseases. The type she suffers from affects her internal organs majorly and also affects her skin by causing third-degree lacerations that leave deep, dark tissue scars. The Lupus had gone undiagnosed and untreated for years which is what caused her heart disease.

To know that my mom has to battle these diseases the rest of the time she has left and not knowing what other damage the S.L.E is doing to my mom's body is so frightening. I know she won't have a long healthy life and her and I both know that she will miss some of mine and my siblings live and this is out of everyone's control.

I believe sometimes life is nothing more than a sad and cruel joke. Don't get me wrong I know my mom loves the life she has.

"I've been fortunate enough to have been blessed with 4 beautiful and intelligent children. In my opinion, it's cruel to be given all this and know that any day I will no longer be a part of it. Death is inevitable, this is a fact but to know undoubtedly tomorrow is not promised puts an enormous amount of fear and sadness inside of me that sometimes makes my normal day almost impossible to bare. I've had plenty of time to dwell on this and come to terms with it. I can only my health will maintain long enough to see all my children grow up to have their own families. I would simply be completely satisfied with my life to know they will be at that place in their own lives where they have become self-sufficient and independent. I also hope they never doubt my love for them and how proud I am of each of them. I have got to be the luckiest woman in the world to have people of their character calling me mom. I would love to take credit for the people they have become, but it's all them. Yes, I played a part, but it's been solely their choice to be good hearted and well-mannered individuals. They are the only reason I'm afraid of death. It's not the dying itself that scares me it's the not being here for my children tomorrow that does." - my mother, Dawn.