Jan. 19, 2016, marks the day my mom has been gone for five years. I'd be lying if I said it hasn't been tough, but I'd be lying if I said it's been unbearable too. People often say that I make it look easy, but the truth is that I've been fumbling along through the years I've been without them, both her and my dad. Blindly searching for the memories I had of them in my mind that I seem to remember less and less with each passing day. Anyone who knows me knows that both of my parents are huge influences in my life. My dad passed away first, and he was who I had spent most of my childhood with, who shaped my love for reading and music. I was his little queen in the land of books. My mom, on the other hand, passed away later, during a time I think all children needed their parents the most. I usually spend the last few weeks of the year (Christmas) and the first few weeks of the year (her birthday and anniversary of her death) remembering the woman who inspires me, and who I continue to aspire to be.

I was a month away from turning fifteen when my mom passed away. She had been battling cancer on and off for about four years. It's something a lot of people know I have a lot of difficulty talking about, but I remember feeling a lot better after I wrote about it a couple years back in high school in an article similar to this one, so I continued the habit. If anything, I owe the beginning of my writing days to my childhood. Reading pointed me in the right direction, but having grown up with things to write about was what really inspired me.

It's a wonder to me how I only started following and remembering everything she ever told me after she died. All the times she had asked me to lessen my intake of red meat due to the very high possibility of me also having the cancer gene, I never paid any attention to. After she died, I stopped eating meat entirely for about two weeks. My body took the sudden change badly and I was too weak to do things I regularly could, so I included fish in my diet, making me a pescatarian of almost five years. This was a belief that I followed without question. My continued practice of this led me to decide to only use cruelty-free make-up and products, something I urge everyone to consider.

Our shared dream of me going on to further my study and passion for music at a renowned school however, came to an end. Music that had always helped me through my dad's death had become something painful for me to turn to after my mom's passing. I quit my violin lessons, and stopped taking my leisure piano classes with my teacher who I had known since I was five years old, and who was basically a second mom to me (at this point I had already graduated the music school and went to continue the habit). My most trusted friend collected dust over the months I had neglected it. I went from playing without a care in the world til two in the morning on a school night, to passing it on my way to the kitchen without a second glance. I still think of what might have been if I hadn't gone and given up. I think I would have made it.

Sometimes I catch myself forgetting things about her; about the both of them. How they looked and dressed, how they sounded when they laughed, what their favorite foods to eat were. Little things, but all the same. When friends of my parents talk about them, I feel like I don't know the people that my parents were at all. It's scary; to feel like you don't know where or who or the parts of which you're made from? Why you like the things you do? Whether or not they liked them too? There are so many questions, they're essentially endless. And it scares me even more when I realize that I may never get the answers to any of them.

Me when I don't have a mom to celebrate mother's day with or a dad to celebrate father's day with.

Things have changed. I often think of what she and my dad might think if they were to meet me as I am now, if they would approve, or be disappointed. I've stayed away from harmful substances, toxic friends, dangerous situations, and did my best in school under the circumstances. Graduating high school was a bittersweet time for me. I was glad that I had made it, even more so because I had made it on my own; but sad that they were not alive to witness it. Especially my mom, who emphasized how important a proper education was for me. It was hard to get myself to try sometimes, but she was what motivated me, as she does in many other aspects of my life.

One of my best friends and her parents at our batch's graduation party aka my second family.

This article could have gone on forever, but it isn't about me, or how I feel. I want to remember the woman who inspired me to be all that I can, who put herself aside to become both mom and dad for me during a very trying time for herself, who pushed me to be better than I was the day before, who sat by me as she made sure I got my practice hours at night even as I cried, who loved me unconditionally no matter the attitude I was giving her, who held me on nights I cried over the loss of my dad and beloved best friend, who fought, and struggled through the pain to battle her illness in order to live longer to be with me instead of joining her dearly beloved. I might never be the woman she once was, maybe not even half, but in my dreams I picture myself, in maybe ten years, a woman close to her likeness.

First date goals.