grieving a mother's death as a 13 year old.

[itamar]

I am 13, my mother died 7 days before summer break ended.
my mother has had cancer since 2017 I remember the day she came back with my dad and they both set down and told us I remember feeling confused about the word cancer because cancer in hebrew is also a crab and I never heard of such thing as cancer.

she started getting chemotherapy in 2019 since I was a young child my dad was narcissistic I remember times he threw me at the door for no reason and shouted one thing I remember specially is that I was going to school and I hid and then went back to the house after he left and cried to my mother. my mother met a woman called Orly about that time which has been with us since then and still comes to our house every few weeks, they met through facebook when my mother was requesting some kind of medical equipment in the start of covid 19 my mother and father's arguments have gotten worst and worst the end of 2021 they divorced the divorce was not on good terms my dad took it to court fighting over full custody (it was half) it was 1 day at her house and 1 day at his my dad took a studio apartment which my sister couldn't stay in because we were me my younger brother and my older sister she refused to stay there because of privacy (there were no rooms one shared place) so for 1.5 years she didn't stay at his place maybe once or twice total.

in 2022 she started what I can call "healing process" she took a new way of looking at the cancer she started looking at it in a positive way she had surgery one day and they found out the cancer is even bigger and that they cant operate so they just opened her up and closed her 8 hours after she came back she was telling us "they didn't open me up for no reason even if it was just for the cancer to get air and realize its not his place" in the middle of 2022 she started taking food via her vines Total Parenteral Nutrition I still know to this day how to replace a bag of food cause I used to help her with it she didn't eat anything for 4 weeks the first week she just went to her room every time we ate because it made her feel uncomfortable and hungry then in about week 2 she thought about the fact that she is living just for us (that's what she would always say) and started being there with us when we were eating she actually made us food while being hungry and getting Total Parenteral Nutrition I remember at the start of summer break talking to her about my grades because they were going down then the week before she past 17/8/2022 she told us she cant handle it anymore and she wanted to take like a pill to make her fall asleep and not wake up she talked to a doctor and they chose a date which is the 24/8/2022 the doctor came to us in 19:00 we were hugging in her bed and crying then at around 21:30 she took the pill she stayed awake for another 10m before she closed her eyes and went to sleep I stayed in her bed with her till the next day which I woke up at 7 I was on my phone trying to understand what's happening (she was still breathing) at 9:00 exactly I remember looking at the clock she stopped breathing then we called an ambulance and they took her.

 

that's my story I am 13 soon celebrating 14 (may 20th)

I left out a few other people which were key part to the story and the dates might've gotten messed up a bit but that's what I remember

I would like to thank Orly, Odded, Adi, haim, and my sister.

I should go to sleep its 2:19 AM at the time of writing this and I am full of tears

 

the picture on the bottom is from my birthday where we celebrated both my and my sister's birthday at once because she was in the hospital at the time of my sisters birthday

[JohnG]

Big hugs. I lost my mother just a few days ago to cancer. It hurts so much. Take care of yourself.