{ Motherless Daughters } uniting those experiencing motherloss

Our Stories

Neha's Story

"Na Papa, na" are the words that I clearly remember screaming to my father before almost falling to the floor when I realized that the hearse waiting outside in front of the house was for my mother and not for our neighbor. I just wanted to fall like my entire world had in that split second. My father's friends caught me but everything in my hands fell, my heart fell too. I felt like I had been shot but the bullet created this gaping hole in my heart. A hole, a space, a sense of emptiness that I still feel to this day, almost 18 months after her death.

When I finally found the strength to get up, my sister came down the stairs and said "Come with me and take her final blessings." I saw one of my mother's closest friends upstairs trying to wipe her tears for me. My legs wobbled as I clumsily arrived at her bedroom door and noticed a Hindu priest (a good friend of my mothers) sitting in the corner of her room chanting prayers so she could attain peace in the after life. I turned and I looked at her lifeless body, her eyes half open, her hands spread above her head. She looked as if she had been sleeping, so peacefully. She was so cold and so far away from me, my mother was gone. I sat by her bed crying pleading with her to come back to me, but the pleading didn't help. She still lay there lifeless in front of my eyes. I touched her feet to take her final blessings and I cried as I watched the people from the funeral home carry her away from me. The covered her and simply took her away from me, forever.

The house was flooded with people that day. My mother had so many friends and she had touched so many people. I was quiet, mostly in a daze as I obeyed the orders of her friends to get certain things together for the funeral. I had ransacked the house with my sister trying to find the sari that my mother had kept aside for this day, it had her bangles jewelry, everything. She had kept it aside before the surgery but I just couldn't find it. It's funny how you can never find what you need on the day that you are desperate for it. I eventually found it and we were able to take it to the funeral home. That day we picked out the casket and scheduled the funeral and cremation for the very next day, my sister's 24th birthday.

July 18th, 2003 had started out as a normal day. I lazily got out of bed at 5:45 a.m., took a shower, prayed and took a quick glance at my mother only to notice that she was peacefully sleeping with my sister by her side. "Thank God" I thought, "She finally got some sleep after such a hard week of chemo." Little did I know that she had fallen asleep so deeply that she had entered a whole different level of existence all together. She had passed to a new realm where her dreams would never end.

While riding the train that morning into Manhattan I just dreaded that day that I had in front me. All I could think about was how miserable I was interning at Citigroup. To take my mind off of the day I had in front of me, I pulled out Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. I was reading until I got to the lone where Albom wrote that his uncle died of pancreatic cancer. After reading that line I got a huge chill down my spine and shut the book and threw it back in my back. When I met up with some of my friends on the ferry, one of them came up to me to apologize for everything she had said behind my back and that she in no way meant to hurt my feelings. Somehow we got on to the topic of my mother and I just kept reflecting about my fondest memories of her and how she was the strongest woman in the world to me as if my heart already realized that she was gone before my mind did.

When I finally got to the office I saw that voicemail button on my phone blinking. I thought it was weird to have voicemail so early in the morning. I listened to the voice and it was my sister saying in panicked voice "Neha, listen to me, get home right now, drop everything and just come home, I don't care what you have to do, take cab or whatever just get home now!" My sister, as a healthcare provider was never known to panic. In mind I knew something was going on. I called my dad and he told me to calm down and to just get home because everything was just fine. When I called my sister back she said "mom needs to see you." It was at that moment that I felt a detachment, something in my heart just switched off. I felt this immediate yet overwhelming emptiness. I told my friend Ninette to tell my boss that a family emergency had come up and that my mother was being rushed to the hospital. I even wrote a note to my boss saying that my mom was being sent to the hospital and that I had come in but I needed to leave to see her right away. When I grabbed my things and got onto the elevator my brain just froze and I couldn't think past the present moment. I just focused on the red floor numbers decreasing, but not fast enough for me. I just stood there impatiently saying in my head "come on come on, my mom needs me." When I turned the revolving doors and exited the building I looked up and all around me. All I could see was the towering skyscraper that covered all sides of me. I felt lost, so incredibly lost in a place that I knew like the back of my hand. At that moment I felt disoriented, light headed, dizzy, and sad, you name it and I felt it. I was so incredibly confused. I finally began walking and after debating in my mind whether to take a cab and then contemplating whether I had enough cash on me to take that cab I realized that perhaps the train would be a better option.

As I had debated those options I crossed the street in the middle and almost got hit by a car, but that was okay because I had finally located my cell phone and began to frantically dial numbers. I called my boss for the umpteenth time and left a frantic message in which I was near tears. I simply said that I'm sorry that I had to leave but my mother had been rushed to the hospital. I called my sister but there was no answer and the same went for my father. I walked as fast as I could to the subway station never feeling so alone in my entire life.

During the entire ferry ride home I just noticed that the emptiness on the boat resembled just how empty I really felt inside. I kept getting calls from my father asking where I was and to just relax because everything was just fine. I never spoke to my sister until I finally got home. Once I had started walking home from the train station I just walked as fast as I could until my shins began to ache. Before I got up the hill (after passing this hill I could have a clear view of my street and my house) my father called asking where I was again. When I told him my location he said to stop and that his friend was right around the corner and he was going to pick me up. I thought to myself "Right around the corner?" that is really strange but I kept walking anyway. As I arrived above the hill I saw a black hearse waiting in front my house. "Wow I thought, I wonder which neighbor passed away."

When my dad's friend pulled up in front of me, I got into the car and said in a chirpy and cheerful voice "hi uncle, how are you?!" When he pulled up in front of my house I noticed the horde of people waiting for me in front of the house and by the front door dressed in white. White - as soon as I saw hat color and noticed the hearse that was actually directly in front of the house, I knew. I knew that my whole world had just collapsed, that my whole 17 years of stability and security were taken away from me in just one morning.

The day we picked out the casket and made the funeral arrangements I made my deepest most dark confessions to my mother. I can't even remember what time of the day it was when we actually went to make the preparations because that day seemed to never end. My mom's friends had come with my sister and me to help dress my mother in her sari and to put her jewelry on. They kept talking to her as if she would answer them at any moment, but I knew better than that. After everyone had finally left the room I had gotten some time to be alone with my mother. I cried and I told her that I needed to confess and tell her some things that I had hid from her for years. I told her that I had been watching General Hospital for many years with my sister and that I had sometimes had meat and was not always a vegetarian like she had wanted me to be. I prayed and pleaded for her to forgive my sins and to watch over us and protect our family. I told that I loved her deeply and that I would always carry her in my heart through everything from graduating high school to having babies of my own someday, I would carry her and I would never forget. I told her that I would do my best to fulfill her dreams for me and that I would never give up no matter how tough life had got. That was my solemn promise to her, and eternal promise that I would carry to my grave. I begged her to show us signs and to help us lead life with some form of her guidance.

My mother's death has not only changed my way of thinking but it has also made me more mature, even more than I was before. Many times I do not feel 18. After beginning college I feel like my mom's sickness and passing has become such a huge part of my identity. I only realized it after leaving home. This part of my identity no one will ever understand. It is something that only another motherless daughter could understand. As I write this essay my father prepares to remarry tomorrow - the one and half year anniversary of my mother's death. I have learned to tolerate quite a bit and I have also learned to accept change as a part of life. I have learned that some things are beyond our power and beyond our control. As for the isolation and loneliness - I feel it all the time; however I have become an expert at suppressing it. Those feelings are like daggers that are constantly stabbing me in my heart- always - and they will till the day that I die. Losing a parent, especially a mother (especially for a daughter) is an out of body experience. The idea that she is gone is something that no one can be prepared for. How can the world exist without the woman who gave it meaning, how can your world exist when the woman who nurtured your world for 9 months is no longer in this world. How can you live life knowing that the woman who gave birth to you no longer exists? The answer is quite is simple - you live life to the fullest - the way she would have wanted you to live it. You live life knowing that she is watching and that her love is greater now because she can control your destiny - she can be your eternal protector. I know that these thoughts do not bear too much comfort but just know that you are not alone. We are all together in this struggle. A struggle forged to help us understand the existence and meaning of life without our mothers - the women who could make all of our troubles and worries go away with one phrase or touch or even one kiss. My stepmother is great person and expects me to confide in her as if she were a friend or someday a mother. A mother? - that she will never be to me, but I am willing and am giving her a chance to be my friend, however she is also a constant reminder of my mother being gone.

After finally cleaning my mother's things out of her room almost 1 and half years after her death, it still feels surreal sometimes. I just can not believe it. Some days I fall asleep at night stunned - still in shock that she died, other nights I sleep happily and peacefully without dreams, other days I cry myself to sleep because that hole in my heart and the emptiness in my soul is simply too overwhelming and the pain is too much to handle without crying. Some days I even meet my mother in her dreams - most of the time she remains a silent ghost, dressed in a white night gown that she passed in, just watching gracefully. My mother has also appeared in my dreams sick simply screaming in pain like some sort of monster. I don't know if that is normal but it does happen and it probably will keep happening however with less frequency.

It has been more than 18 months since my mother passed away and let me tell you, life sis not stop when she died and life certainly has not stopped as I mourn her death each day. What I have learned from this experience is that you must rebuild somehow. The loss that you felt, the gaping hole and the emptiness will never go away and time heals nothing. However you learn to live with that emptiness and you carry it inside you forever. When I get married one day I will cry, when I have my babies I will cry and relive the day she died over and over again. It is a sad yet honest truth. Even when I started college this year and as I am going through college, the hardest thing I find is that each one of my friend's has their mother and I don't. When they are stressed out or crying they can call their mothers to hear their magical words of wisdom that seem to make all worries away. I don't have that anymore. I do have a loving and supporting family but it is not the same, not nearly the same. After going through everything I know that hope exists and it is the strength that my mother gives me every day helps me get through each day. Each day I try to learn from my experiences and I try to remember all of my mother's goodness and selfless action. I try to remember that the way she lived life and learn from it.

Even after my mother's death all I've wanted to do was make her proud and that included becoming valedictorian of my class and then entering a seven year medical program. I do believe and must believe that she has given me the strength to accomplish all of these things and her supernatural guidance has allowed these wonderful opportunities to come my way. My name is Neha and this is my story.

Š Neha

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