In my lifetime, I’ve witnessed more death than I could ever imagine. I have been plagued by it, and I fear for those who have it much worse than me because the feeling is unbearable. In this post I’m going to talk about my first encounter with death, and how I overcame their death with time. Now, It’s not easy speaking about this but it’s life, and everyone goes through these troubling moments.

By Tim Dawson (Flickr: Sad Lucy) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

My first encounter with death was my mother. It happened when I was seven years old, and I can remember the day like it was yesterday. Now, before my mother passed, she was in and out of the hospital for a year or two. I do recall some of the things we did together like dressing up for Halloween or having the mandatory fire and hot cocoa on Christmas Day. But, I can’t say I remember all that much. I was young, and with her in and out of the hospital, it was tough to spend quality time. I can also say I never really acknowledged the severity of her breast cancer, and I never knew that someone could die. But, I found that out the hard way when I came home from school one day, and my entire family was at my house. I thought we were having a party, but soon came to realization it wasn’t when my sisters and I were pulled into a room by my father. I can’t tell you how confused I was that day, but you can only imagine. I asked a dozen questions, until I realized that I’d never see my mother again. I instantly had the worse feeling in my stomach, and combined with tears this was one of the worse days of my life. A few days before she died, she had told me something. I didn’t put it together until after she died but it made sense.  She had told me “I’ll always be in your heart”, and I’ll never forget that. It’s something I will always cherish, and I believe it to be true because I have a strong heart.

Now, overcoming this wasn’t easy. I was depressed for a long time, and it was troubling. But I came to realize that death is a part of life, and we just have to accept reality. As long as we can remember memories, or have pictures, they will never be erased. It’s all about taking in everything they taught you as well, and making sure you carry it out. I certainly have done that to this day and I make sure that I touch every heart I come across, and I try to leave a smile on everyone’s face. I know for sure my mother would just want me to be happy, and live life. That’s what I intend to do, and I would never take that for granted. I would also like to say, cherish every moment you have with a loved one. Never take any moment for granted, and say “I Love you” to them once in awhile. It doesn’t hurt to tell someone that, more than it does to see them in a casket. Sorry to be blunt about that but it’s true. I’ll share more stories of my life, in later posts. Thanks for reading, as always.