Here's some of what happened the day my mom died.

I was 17. I woke up. I went to school. My mom was still asleep and I didn't wake her to say goodbye like usual. I worked at Taco Bell and went there after school. My mom was supposed to pick me up after work. She worked evenings at a bank. It was really rainy and I waited a half hour after my shift ended but she didn't show.

I called my dad. He came and got me. I went in to my bedroom. The doorknob kept being a pest and getting stuck. I told my dad to come in and have a look at it. He came into the room and I shut the door. It got stuck all right. It was locked and would not open. Me and my dad got in a fight. I had to climb out the window and come in from the outside and use the key to open the door. My dad went down to the kitchen. I went to my room.

After a while my dad said "Matt come here." I went into the kitchen. He said "oh no." There were red and blue lights flashing outside. Two cops came in and sat down. They said to my dad "We have some bad news, your wife died tonight." I just sat there on the steps. My dad went with the cop to go tell my brother. We called my other brothers and my sister. We were all quite shocked.

It turns out she had had a heart attack during the night a couple days before hand. She had been unaware of it though since she was sleeping. However a "hole" had been torn in her heart and it was leaking blood into the sack around the heart. After a couple days of this the sack got too full to allow the heart to expand when pumping so it stopped. This happened after she had finished her shift at work. She went out to the car, sat down, turned the car on, and died. A co-worker found her there an hour later with the car still running. She had been unusually happy during the period preceding her death.

A bit of "comic" relief was provided later that night. I was crying with my head on my sister's lap. She had a big cup of hot coffee. I lifted my head up and the hot coffee went flying all over me. I jumped up like crazy and pulled my shirt off. It was really awkward since we were all sad and it was also kind of funny. I think we laughed a little bit.

A few years ago I was at work, doing my usual computer stuff between semesters when I got a call from a police officer. He told me to come to a nearby hospital. I had no idea why, and he wouldn't tell me. I sped to the hospital, and was greeted by saddened faces telling me which room to go to.

When I walked into the small room I found my twin sister and my dad crying. My dad managed to tell me the bad news. My mother died of a heart attack. It was hard to believe -- she was not heavy, and did not drink or smoke. But it still happened. She had collaped in front of her class (she was a teacher). Poor kids.

My sister was really crying, since she had been substitute teaching at the same school as my mom at the time. Seeing everyone else cry made me cry. They then showed her corpse to us, leaving me with an image in my mind I'm not sure if I like. You can imagine why.

Friends and neighbors stopped by our house every day for a week afterwards, offering us good food and company. It was nice to know people care still.

I haven't cried about my mom's death since the hospital until now, reading other people's stories. I don't feel like dealing with it because my mom and I got in a little of a fight the night before. I don't remember if I said "I love you" to her when I went up for bed. That hurts me. I haven't even visited her grave by myself yet. I just don't know if I'm ready to cope.

But I do like to think of the memories we shared while she was alive, like our long-overdue vacation we took a few months before to Jamaica. Isn't that better than focusing on death? *sigh* I just hope she's still proud of me.

I love you mom.

I am crying as I write this and my hands are weak.

I need to do this, mostly for my own sake. I was 19 and it was the 11th of September when we got a call from the hospice where my mom had lived for the last month or less. It only took about two months from diagnosis of a returned breastcancer to that call.

I really wanted her to be alive when I got there since the day before had been bad, even though I got to spend time with her and nothing bad happened. And I could never squeeze out the words "I love you". But she was dead, I remember crying senselessly for about an hour before me and dad could phone relatives and friends. I didn't cry one tear before that moment when I saw her laying on her bed, arms crossed. And up until this day I'm not sure if I've even said the words "my mom is dead".

I want her to know what I do and what she really meant to me.. She was the one who actually convinced me that life was worth living, and now she is dead.