Sunday the 26th Sept 2010 I had a sleepless night turning and tossing all night. I was aching all over, I looked at the clock and it was 7.30am UK time. So I thought Mum must be awake, I picked up the phone and called her. She sounded so happy to hear from me. As usual mum was always delighted to hear from me despite that I called her every day some times twice a day. We talked and laughed about all sorts for 1 hour and even forgot to tell her that I had a sleepless night. Just hearing her voice, to me was all I needed to heal. 45 minutes later I received a phone call that Mother had collapsed and she was dead. Well it was the start of the day and I knew then my life would never be the same again, I screamed in disblief. Mother was an extra ordinary woman and really I am very lucky to have her in my life. I think some times I am Just sad that I think ' who will love me the way that she did. One of the best people I' have had privilege of knowing. Mother had a gift of love. Her love was never biased, she had a place for each one of us in her heart, and she always made me feel so special. Lord I thank you for her, for I was loved. . I celebrate the love she gave us we celebrate her. I appreciate the lessons she taught me about how to be a good mother, and hopefully I will pass them on to my Children. I pray I am kind of selfless mother that she was. People keep telling me that time is a great healer but I know in my heart I would never get over the death of my mother, how could I, she was a part of me and how can you get over that. as time moves on maybe I will learn to live with it. I can appear to be getting on with my life and to an extent I am but in the forefront of mind, 24 hrs a day is the Mother I have lost and a lot of my energy is spent keeping the emotions of that under control, I am always conscious of how easy it can be to lose control. The weeks and months after the funeral were really hard. I had to leave and go back to work I was on my own and my daughter so I had no choice I had to make myself get up in the morning, I had to make life as normal for her as I could, So to the outside world Jessica was okay, if only they knew the truth, I didn't want to be here anymore I just wanted to die so I could be with Mother. people may think that was a terrible way to think when I had a beautiful thirteen year old daughter, who was so supportive and understanding. Two weeks after Mum died I decided to go back to work as I just couldn't stand to be in the house through the day on my own, my mind was torturing me with the thoughts of how she died, I had these pictures in my head of what she must have looked like. How she felt inside. Anyway as I said earlier I went back to my work in the middle of October, I worked in a Halifax I always drove to work so I didn't have to meet or speak to anyone. I always cried all the way to work. I would work till about 5.30pm. I would then drive to school to pick up my daughter. I talk about my mother a lot, I do not want to carry on as if she had never existed, and people don't know how to deal with that. It is at times like that you find out who your true friends are and surprisingly they are not always who you think they are. So many people turned up at the funeral. And if I could I would have loved to hug each one of them. To us that was a mega respect for Mother. Thank you so much. With the funeral over I was at a loss as what to do, I had kept myself busy the time prior to the funeral making sure everything was being organised constantly. I did anything just to keep me busy so I didn't have to think about what had really happened, but now the funeral was past the reality started to hit home. I tried so hard to keep it together for the sake of my Daughter as she was finding it hard enough without having to cope with me as well, but sometimes when I was in on my own the fear and the panic was overwhelming, the fear that if you let go of what you were feeling that you would lose your mind, the panic when your heart is so sore it felt like someone had stuck their fist in your chest and you can't catch your breath. They say that grief is an emotional pain but whoever thinks that has never lost a Mother, yes it is emotional but I can assure you grief is also a physical pain your whole body aches, your heart hurts, your head feels like it is going to explode, you can't sleep because you can't switch your thoughts off so you keep the T.V./Radio on all night to try and focus your mind on something else. 3 months down the road I still sleep with the T.V./Radio on as I never allow myself to be in total silence for fear of where my mind may take me, which leaves me Physically exhausted. Unless you have been there nobody can understand that black hole you are in. You watch the world going by and you get angry because you can't understand how everything can just keep going when your life has come to an abrupt halt. You don't want to be in company because you feel you have no right to act like a normal person, because if you smile or laugh or maybe just let what happened slip out of your mind for just a second you feel so guilty and usually end up in tears, and other people don't know how to cope when that happens, so you start to avoid people and end up shutting yourself away from friends and family.