Stolen From Me
What is considered to be one of life’s most painful experiences is the death of a loved one. Many of us would prefer to die ourselves rather than have a loved one die. I have witnessed and felt this pain. When I was eleven years old my mother was killed in a car accident. I will never forget that day; it was the worst day of my entire life. Even as I am eighteen today, I still feel the pain that I did when I was told that my mother was killed, or in my words, stolen from me. This experience has taught me an infinite amount of things that have made me the person that I am today. You would think that since eight years have almost passed that this subject may be easier to talk about or less agonizing for me. But, I have noticed that as years and months pass, it gets harder and more distressing. You too, may know what I am talking about if you have lost someone very close to you. If you haven’t, then you will in the future because this is something that every person experiences at least once in their lifetime.
You know that feeling you get when someone breaks up with you and says they never want to talk to you again? Or the days when you feel so alone and depressed that you wish you were someone else just so you could be happy? Or how about the reaction you have when someone does something so awful to you that you wish you could just punch them? Well put all those emotions together and multiply it by a hundred and that’s how I felt the night I was awoken and told that my mother never made it to work and that I would never be able to see her again. At first I thought it was some sick joke, but then I realized that no one was laughing. That’s when I knew that my life was never going to be the same again. From that moment forward I would become a different person. I was in such a shock that I could barely breathe. I just sat there, not able to move or speak, like I had been put into a coma. I just kept wishing I could wake up from this horrible nightmare. I soon came to realize that no one was going to pinch me and wake me up from a dream. It was reality, as miserable and hurt as I felt at that moment, it was still reality.
Growing up it was just me, my older brother and my mom living together. My brother was my father figure because my real father had no desire to be a part of my life. When my brother was old enough to move out, it was just me and mom at home. The time not spent at school or with friends in my neighbor, was spent with my mom. We were always together. We were so close that even when I went to the park for a little bit, she would give me a hug and kiss and tell me that she loved me. As I look back now, I realize that I will never feel that sort of love and affection from any other person. The worst part about losing someone close to you is knowing that you never had the chance to say goodbye. Losing a loved one in a car accident is different than losing someone due to an illness, like cancer. When a person has an illness then you are aware that they are going to pass away. You can be ready for what is going to happen in the future. That night when I told my mom goodbye and that I love her, little did I know it would be the last time I could say those words to her.
After many days and weeks of grieving I decided that it was time to go back to school. At the time I was in the sixth grade. Christmas break had just ended and everyone was excited to go back and see all of their friends. I, on the other hand, was not excited at all. I dreaded having to go back and talk to people. I wasn’t sure if everyone knew why I was out of school for so long and I was hoping that they didn’t know. Of course my bad luck continued and when I arrived at school I knew things had changed their too. Everyone looked at me differently than they usually had. My peers that I hadn’t got along with were now smiling at me in the hall and saying hello. Teachers that I didn’t even know were asking me how I was. This irritated me because I didn’t want people knowing about my personal life. I sure didn’t want them treating me differently because they felt bad for me either. This is when I started to shy away from my social life. I was afraid to join in on conversations because someone might ask me about my mother. I no longer wanted friends or even acquaintances for that matter. I just wanted to be left alone and deal with my problems myself. I wanted to handle the situation on my own. I did not want advice or comfort from other people. So, I shut myself out from the rest of the world. I developed a wall around my feelings and just hid behind that wall, like a turtle does in his shell.
Living behind that wall just made things worse for me. I went into a state of depression. All I could think about was how horrible my life was and that I just wanted to go back in time and change things. What hit me the worse is that I knew she would never be here again. She would no longer be there when I came home from school. She wouldn’t be there when I needed someone to talk to. We would no longer watch movies, listen to music or go shopping together. That is all that kept going through my mind every minute of the day. This painful awareness has always affected me. She was not able to send me off with a smile on my first date or my first day of high school. I never had the chance to cry on her shoulder when my heart was broken for the first time. Coming to college wasn’t like other girls experiences. Moving into college was very painful for me. I saw other girls hugging their mother’s goodbye and I couldn’t help but feel like an outsider. I just watched and wished that I could be doing the same thing. I would close my eyes and imagine that I was hugging my mother goodbye, like I did when I was younger. For a few brief seconds I would smile and remember how happy I used to be, then I would open my eyes and reality would set back in. It brings tears to my eyes when I think about how she will not be able to watch me graduate from college, help me pick out my wedding dress or be in the room when I have children. I will never have the opportunity to experience things that most people do with their mother’s.
From a very young age we are all told that we should share our feelings with others and that it is not beneficial for us to keep our feelings “bottled up”. I have still not learned to do this. There have been many times that I attempted to open myself up to others, but it was always a failed attempt. I have been either too scared to open up as much as I should or I backed down because I feel like people will not understand me until they have been through what I have been through. Everyone tells me that they know how I feel, but to me this is not true at all. No one will ever know how I feel until they have gone through the same thing. After reading this you may feel pain for me, but it could never be the same sort of pain that I have been feeling since the day my mother was stolen from me. I have had people tell me to “get over it” or “get over your past”. This is one of the most excruciating things a person could tell me. I would understand if I was told to learn from it or not let it bring me down, but get over it? I could not imagine trying to “get over it”. I think it is impossible for anyone to get over the fact that their mother was killed in a car accident. But, unless you have lived through it then you might not feel the same way I do.
I think I have made it clear that when you lose a loved one, it is never easy and the process of trying to recover from it may take a lot of hard work and time. I have still not recovered from losing my mother and I am not sure when I will. All I can say is that I try my best to be strong and optimistic when given a challenge like this. When you are put in the position like I was, you have to remember that death is a part of the life cycle. Everything that lives eventually has to die; something’s sooner than others. Know that you can still live your life and that you have the ability to be happy again. Do not let a tragic event bring you down for too long. It is not worth it; life is too short to be unhappy forever. Learn from the experiences you are faced with in your life and develop goals and values that will help you in your future. Losing someone you love is not entirely a bad thing; you must learn to take the best from it. Live for them and be happy. That is exactly what they would want you to do.
