My Mother's Death

It was the 35th anniversary of my mother's death last week. I was 23 and my sister was 13. My mother was 47. My mother's early death was a shock to the whole family and all our friends. Nobody expected it. In the United States if you are white, middle class and young you don't think that something like that can happen.

I have never completely gotten over it. The affect of her death on my father and sister has probably been the reason I have never completely moved on. I still am sorrowfully amazed how her death was able to completely unravel my father. And what my father emotionally did to my sister.

Before her death I had thought my father was emotionally stronger than my mother.... looks can be deceiving.

I think about parents who loose young one's. I think how much more terrible the pain must be for them. I now grieve for any parent who looses a child.

Life does have a way of renewing itself though. My stepson, whom I didn't know for many years after my mother's death, was born four days after her death.