13 years ago today, the loss that shaped me.

13 years ago today, the body that carried me into this precious life could cope no more with the cancer that had stolen every last bit of life from it, and my Mother died. 13 years, had to type that again...seems like another lifetime, yet also strangely just like yesterday.

It was not until this afternoon that I remembered the significance of the date, for the first time, I almost forgot. I needed to be reminded, and I was hard on myself for the rest of the day, crying through the darkness of a quiet cinema and the fluff of a silly movie. I have held onto the importance of recognising this date for so many years, marking it in my calendar ceremoniously, until now.

These pictures are those that I turn to now that I am a Mother, I sit and compare the difference of more than 15 years between when she first gave birth and when I did. Time does slowly heal the raw pain, it never completely erases the dull ache of huge loss. The longing to ask questions now about the way that she handled the sleepless nights of her toddlers, my brother and I. What I wouldn't give to introduce her to my spirited little child who asks about her all the time. 

Words will never truly convey the loss that broke me, and then shaped me. Hopefully though, the words will allow her to flow on through me and out into the healing hearts of those who need to know that they are not alone.