There are often difficult things in life that we have to deal with. Things we don’t want to deal with because it is hard or it hurts to forget and move on. To live, and having the people you love around you is something we often take for granted, before something like death or cancer happens to  someone we love. A life is not something you should take for granted. One moment can change everything so that nothing will ever be the same again. When you go trough something like I did, it forces you to put things in to a perspective. To make you think about things you never tough to think about before. What I and my family went trough is something I don’t wish for anyone to go trough. My story is like this: it started out in San Francisco about five years ago.

“I hate you” were the last three words I said to my mother before I slammed the door in her face and went to school. It was a perfectly normal morning for me and her. We always fought like that. Just like every mother and a teenage girl do. She didn’t understand. Everyone knew that I couldn’t go to school wearing a cap. Come on, it was February for God sake. She gave me the speech about how I had to take care of my self. That I was a big girl and that she couldn’t tell me what to do all the time. I just rolled my eyes and told her that I didn’t need her help. And if she didn’t want to baby me because I needed to take care of my self and grow up, then why couldn’t I make the choice about whether or not I wanted to wear the cap to school?

When I walked to the bus, I just wanted her to go away. At school I told my two best friends, Matt and Alison about our fight. Matt had been my best friend since kindergarten. He said he wasn’t and denied it every time we asked him about it, but everyone knew that he was gay. Alison on the other hand was a small town girl that moved here when we started in 4th grade. She was the leader in our so called “group”. She grew up with four brothers so I guess you can say she had that boyish look, with her hair always in a ponytail, without any makeup and she had absolutely no interest in boys what so ever. I knew that they would understand me and take my side in the case when it was about my mom, because they had fights like that all the time with their mothers too. In the recess that day I told them about everything. About how much I hated my mother and that I wished she would just stop nagging at me. I mean I was fourteen years old and I could take care of my self, at least I thought I could. After school I walked to the buss and went home knowing nothing about the fact that from that day on, everything would change.  

When I opened the door to my house, I meet my father in the hallway would change.  . His face was sad, and it looked like he had been crying. “Why did he look at me like that?” I thought. He walked slowly towards me. My dad was a very emotional man and I could se that he tried to hold back the tears, but he couldn’t. “What is wrong?” I asked. He didn’t answer me. “What is wrong?” I repeated. He took my hands and a tear fell down his cheek. My head started to wander and I thought of every possible thing that could have happened. He hugged me. “Dad What….?” I started. “Its mom” he interrupted me with, and hugged me harder. “Where is she?” I asked. “Is she OK?” “I am sorry, Jenny. There was an accident” he continued. “She… she didn’t make it,” he said before he burst in to tears. Those five seconds were the longest five seconds in my life. I started to cry, and my brother Jake came in to the room and he started to cry too. After a few seconds, we all cried. For a long time I just stood there in my fathers arms. I couldn’t believe it. Why me? What did we do to deserve this?

The next days I stayed in my room. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I just wanted to read. I loved to read books back then, and I still do, because when I do it reminds me of my mom. When I sit back and read it is like I disappear in to my own little world. In a world with no problems, were everything is good. And everyone is happy. It was like she never died. But when I stopped reading, because I had to eat or go to the bathroom or something, I could feel the pain coming back. I couldn’t make the pain go away.  

When someone you know dies, there are always many questions you ask your self. Like: Why your family? Or in my case “did she die because she drove when she was mad at me and lost control of the car?” That one question made me think that it was my fault, because I was mad at her and she was mad at me. I thought that way until the day came when we were having the funeral and I meat a woman that was a friend of moms. I will never forget what she said. “I have known your mother for a long time, and all she ever talked about was you, Jake and your dad. She loved you so much, even though you fought sometimes. But after all these years I have known her I have heard more good things then bad about you. She talked about you with a huge smile on her face and she told me how much she was like you when she was your age. There was no doubt that she cared allot about you, and even though she is gone now, you will always have here with you in your heart and she will always look after you. Remember that.”

What she told me helped me allot over the next five years. It made me realise that it was not my fault, and that she loved me no matter what.

Now, five years after my mother past away, I still miss her, but I am able to smile again. The sorrow that I felt hasn’t gone away and I haven’t forgotten her, but I have learned to live with it.

Whether you like it or not, life brings many challenges and tests that you have to face and deal with. I was faced with a tough and painful challenge, but it has made me grow as a person and made me stronger.

Losing someone you love is not an easy thing. It is a pain in your heart you have to live with the rest of your life. The one thing I regret is the fact that I didn’t really appreciate her when she was alive, and that I took her life for granted. I loved my mother so much and I would do anything to have only one more day with her. My advice is to appreciate the once around you. And never, ever take anyone for granted.