I think one of the hardest and most heart breaking things I've had to deal with since my mother passed away back in May of this year, is having to watch my two year old son, who absolutely adored his "nonna," search for her all over her house..

It's having to hear him say her name and ask me where she is, then having to explain to him that, "Nonna is an angel in heaven now" and point to the sky.

She was such a huge part of my son's life and she was one of the very few people he actually trusted and was comfortable around..

He's so young, and he obviously doesn't understand what is going on and where his nonna is. He gets so confused at times because he knows he's at his nonna's house, but he doesn't know why she's never home..

I hate this so much for my little boy.. He will never get to grow up and see how much of an amazing person my mother was.

I know I won't have to worry about it for another good few years, but I have no idea as to what I am going to say when he is old enough and asks how she passed away..

Then there's my fourteen year old younger sister who found our mother.. Who had to give her CPR until an ambulance showed up when our mother had already been gone for a few hours.. Who was stolen from the only home, town, school, friends and family that she's known since she was three years old to a place where she knows not one single person besides her father who never had much to do with her, and her older brother..

When she comes to stay for a few days, I can just look at her and see her pain.. I see her staring off into space with this traumatic experience still embedded into her memory, and it hurts me so bad.. 

It hurts so bad to have your younger sister sob into your shoulder and apologize to you because she, "couldn't save momma," and she "tried so hard."

To watch her slowly lose herself to depression and anxiety, but not being able to be there for her all the time as you should be..

My step-father, who met my mother when he was eighteen, married her at nineteen and had been married to her for eleven years, is another big heartache to see.. He loved her so much and she was the only love like that that he had ever experienced..

The night after my mother passed away, me and him were sitting outside and he starts to play "Sissy's Song" by Alan Jackson (the song touched us so deeply and described my mother so well, it was also played at her funeral), we both just broke down. We asked God why, we cried till we couldn't cry anymore. And he says to me, "We were supposed to grow old together.. I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with her." My heart sank.

Then there's me... I was a month shy of turning twenty when I got the call at work that my mother was gone. Everything just stopped. I couldn't talk, or breathe. My knees just hit the ground and tears just poured out.

I've had the hardest time with losing momma.. I lost nearly twenty pounds two and a half weeks after she passed away, was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, put on an anti-depressant/anxiety medicine and just lost myself completely.

My momma was my best friend. She was literally the only person I went to for everything and anything. She was the only one who ever understood me.

And when I lost her, I lost such a big part of myself that I don't think I will ever be able to get back. People tell me, "Your mothers death does not define you." But in a way, it has defined me. It has changed me a little as a person, a mother, a daughter, a sister and a friend.