I was a 20 year old girl who had just started my junior year at a new college (I had gone to community college previously) and moved four hours across the state to attend University. 

On Oct. 3rd, I had received a phone call from the hospital (four hours in the opposite direction) that my mother had overdosed in her apartment and was found unresponsive. My mother was a drug addict who abused several drugs, but her DOC (drug of choice) was prescription medication. 

I got in my car and drove, alone, in tears, unsure of what was next, each mile bringing me closer and closer to my biggest fear. I spent the next week in a hotel and my older brother (23 at the time) eventually joined me. My dad (my parents were divorced) joined me, too. That started the worst week of my life - endless tests, sitting restless in empty waiting rooms, crying until my eyes felt like they would melt from my skull. Eventually, we would learn that she was completely brain dead, and we would have to take her off of life-support.

My brother was an alcoholic, and he spent the better part of that week holed up in our room, drunk - this was his coping mechanism, and it wasn’t my place to chastise him. I longed for a coping mechanism, too. My dad, who again, was divorced from my mom, no longer had any power of attorney or say over my mom’s medical condition, but he encouraged me and told me that my mom wouldn’t want to stay like that. I trusted my dad - he is a good man, and they were married over 20 years. 

I signed the paperwork and asked for just a few more hours. My brother came up, after he had sobered up, and together, we said goodbye. My mother had MRSA from her ‘meth mites’ where she had picked at her skin during withdrawal, so we couldn’t touch her with our bare hands - we could only visit her while wearing gloves and masks. I wanted nothing more than to kiss my mother goodbye, but I couldn’t. 

We left the room - we didn’t want to be in there to watch the machines get turned off. She didn’t take a single breath by herself, nor a single heartbeat. At least that’s what the doctor told us, and maybe that was just a gesture he offered us in kind comfort. At the age of 51, my mother left this world. 

To those who didn’t know her, they saw a drug addict who chose her love of being high over children. And maybe, superficially, that was true.

But to me, she will always be that warm person with a kind smile. She will always have that sweet laugh that sounds like songbirds twittering high in the trees. To me, she will always be the lingering smell of cigarettes and Chanel perfume, sweet and musky and rich. To me, she will always be my mother - the one who made my Barbies handmade clothes and always gave me an extra cookies for dessert and who told me that being a tall girl was bad ass. She raised me to be witty and proud, boisterous and sharp, but also, gentle and caring, especially towards the defenseless - animals, children, and the like.

I miss you, mom. Every day. I wish circumstances had been different so we could still be here together today, but know that I love you to the moon and back, and always will.

He saw sunsets

And tumbling leaves

And thought of her

Walking through the trees

A halo of sunlight

Set upon her head

Smiles sweetening

Her mouth of red

And footprints fell

In the aftermath

Leading away