14 Years Later And I Still Can't Let Go

It was a Saturday night, when she asked me to wash her back; she called me away from the rest of the family as if to reprimand me.
Her speech was slower than normal, with long pauses emphasizing her thoughts, she specifically asked me to be strong, at that time I thought she meant just for that moment. The next morning, a Sunday, she was weak once again. Towards the afternoon she was taken away, away forever.
I never got the chance to say Goodbye to her, I never really said I love you to her face although I know a mother’s intuition she knew she was the woman of my heart, my pillar, my fortress, my teacher, my everything. I never got the chance to look into her eyes and smile simultaneously with her acknowledging that I was flesh of her flesh.
And that was what it was, she never return after she was taken off in the ambulance, I was told she didn’t even make it to the hospital. The actual cause is still a blur to me, something I have promised myself to find out from my father very soon. I must admit, once I was snooping around like I always used to through my dad’s files and I stumbled across a letter. In the letter was what I’d describe as an autopsy. My mum died of a heart failure. I have wondered how a heart so big, loving and pure could have failed. I have questioned God on countless occasions why He took her away from me, from us, from him. The ‘him’ there is my father, a man who lost his life’s soul mate when my mother passed away, a man who lost the best wife in the world, the best companion and mother of his children. My father once told me, ‘he has never come across a natural mother like my mother’. She was a natural mother. She was created in God’s image and to His taste, a woman who made raising children the best job in the world. She simplified the complex and created a wonder from scratch. I can proudly say I learnt some of life’s lessons by just observing her. She was a star.
Fourteen years since she departed from us and I go through everyday still mourning for her. Counsellors say it is possible to mourn for years, I think that I will be. But when I mourn, I comfort myself soon afterwards knowing that she is looking down on me, protecting me, praying for me. I go through my days with that knowledge held in my heart.
I will be strong, because I know that she would want me to be strong. I miss you; I’ll never stop loving you. Goodnight dear mother.