Losing a mother to cancer in my early twenties

Losing my mother to the deadly disease of pancreatic cancer is one of the hardest blow I have to deal with in my early twenties.

Imagine you are in your early twenties, where life had just begun, life was swinging, you felt invincible because hey, life as an adult was going to be interesting.

Until you find yourself in one of the cold consultation room of national cancer centre, with your beloved mum and the doctor broke the gloom news that she was very ill, stage 4 pancreatic cancer it was.

There and then, I felt my world stop. At that very instant, alongside my mother, we both broke down and cried.

A death sentence it felt like. In the darkness of it all, I found myself asking the doctor how long more she had, only to have the doctor raise her index finger - one year was the estimate.

How do you process having your mum for only an estimated period of one year left? How did our mother-daughter relationship reach a day where there is an expiry date to it?

Against all odds, we tried to defy odds. Mum fought on very bravely for my sake, watching the debilitating effects of chemotherapy consume her was harder than hard. She had bleeding ulcers constantly, skin on her hands and feet were broken to the point she was bleeding from those open sores, traces of her blood stains was left everywhere she went to. It was awfully painful watching her spiral down.

Towards the end, when she knew that her time was coming to a close, as she became weaker and weaker, she told me that

🤍 she would watch over me from wherever she was

🤍 be strong in life

🤍 that she loved me very much and was grateful for the relationship we shared

One of the hardest conversations you can ever have is this. The one where your dying parent tells you all that you need to know racing against time. And your heart breaking over and over again during the course of it.

In the end, she passed on as I sang “you are my sunshine” to her repeatedly, as she was unable to respond while her body was shutting down, I knew not whether she was present - but one sign was - tears rolled down her cheeks while I sang. She faded away slowly into the stillness of the night.

I felt my world crash that very night.

It was Christmas Eve.

No longer would I be able to dial her number and hear her voice on the other end, no longer would I have someone who would love and look out for me a mother would. I lost my mother. A motherless daughter is what they call people who have lost their mothers.

.

.

It has since been slightly over a decade since I have lost my mum and life without a mother is jarringly weird and lonely.

I have my own family yet during so many key milestones of my life such as pregnancy, childbirth, confinement and life in general is done without a mother’s love.

Some takeaways from losing a mother in my twenties and evolving into a mother myself :

🤍 You have to find ways to keep afloat more than ever

🤍 It can get very lonely at many points in your life.

🤍 Being pregnant without a mother means no one would care for you and worry for you a mother would.

🤍 No one I can call to lament about the challenges I face, no, sharing it with your husband just won’t cut it sometimes , it’s different really.

🤍 Going through childbirth without a mother rooting for you means you find your own coping mechanism to manage it

🤍 Having your fresh baby but having the raw wound of not being able to share the newness of it all with your own mother

🤍 As postpartum hormones rages, as you find your momentum as a new mum or a new mum while mothering your older children, you will miss your mother’s love and presence more than ever.

🤍 Wishing you can call your mother and just hear her comforting voice

🤍 Seeing mother-daughters outside makes you miss your own and realising how you would never get to experience this again

🤍 Sometimes getting a whiff of that familiar perfume your mum used to use and tears rolling down your face because “hey that’s mum” but that’s not.

You will never ever be the same after your mother passes on. You try to find your own path again but your heart hurts and yearn for your mum. Suddenly the old adage that “time heals all wounds” does not apply to this scenario at all.

It’s like life accelerated twenty times for me when I lose my mum in my early twenties. I will forever mourn the loss of her. Mourn the loss of what should be, what could be and what would never be.

Love your mother hard while you can, say your “ I love you” when you can, we don’t have forever with our loved ones.

🤍

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