I lost my mother a month and 11 days ago to cancer. She had been sick for five years, five years made all the harder by a botched brain surgery that gave her aphasia and changed her personality. She could be aggressive and mean-spirited at one moment and break down and cry the next. But despite of all the fighting and hurtful things that were said over the years I still loved her so, so much. Before she became ill, she was my everything. We were so close and there was nothing I could not confide in her. Watching her change over the years has been extremely painful, so painful in fact that I foolishly thought that when she died I would be sad but relieved. I also foolishly thought that I would get to say goodbye to her.

I was on the other side of the world when my dad called and told me to come home, because her condition had worsened. I had been gone for five weeks and was not supposed to be home for another month - in other words, I was not expecting this. I though we at least had another year, at least a few hours... I made it to Singapore and called home, hoping that she had woken up so we could talk. My sister told me that she was dead. I was alone in a foreign country and I still had 5 hours until my flight and then another 12 until I would be home.

When I heard she had died it felt like something had broken inside of me, something I instinctively knew could not be fixed. I am constantly aware of this almost physical feeling of being broken, or of  being incomplete. I have lost a part of myself with her and now I am just going through the motions. I feel that I can't really connect with people anymore. It's as if there is this void in my heart that makes me an outsider. My friends are sweet and try to help, but I feel as if we are worlds apart. Everything has changed for me, everything feels different. The world is paler without her and the things that used to make me happy are a tiny comfort, like healing a stab wound with band-aids.

Sundays are the worst because they are the end of one meaningless week and the beginning of another. I work a little at a part-time job and look forward to the weekend where I drink with my friends. This helps a little. I drink heavily until I feel better, go out or pass out, sleep with an old flame and then I repeat it again the next weekend.

I feel as if there is nothing to look forward to. I'm unsure of what to do with my life and have been confused about my future since she was diagnosed (I was 20 and just starting my adult life). I watch my friends as they start to settle into their adult lives, and find myself lagging behind and I am worried that I will never catch up because of this enormous grief. And it makes me angry and envious that the world should be so unfair and the universe should shit on me like this.

I get envious when I see girls my age with their mothers. Especially if those girls have children. I will never be able to share that experience with my mother, I will never be able to give her grandchildren. She will never give me advice and she will never hug me and tell me that I'll be okay. I know that this will always hurt, but the last five years have hurt a lot too. I'm only 25 and just not prepared to live the rest of my life in pain. I'm sure it gets better at some intangible date in the very distant future, but I also know it's gonna get worse.

This is the worst feeling in the world. I don't know what to do. I feel like I don't have many good things in my life and nothing to look forward to. Except the weekends.

Does this get better??????