The Lost Loved One

Bridget Ladet
February 4, 2013
English 1301
Professor Lindemann
The Lost Loved One
On September 8, 2004, I didn't know that losing my mother while being at school, was the hardest thing of my life. I thought I was going to come home to the smell of her home made cooking, some barbecue she decided to fix for dinner, or even some food she had bought from Jack in the Box because she knew it was my favorite place to eat at. Being a sophomore in high school at the time, it was hard for me to concentrate in class for the next few days but I had to be strong for my family and my oldest sister. I thought I had lost it all because school wasn't an option yet along, living wasn’t one either.
It all started on a dreadful looking Wednesday afternoon, I’d say around noon until 1:00 pm. At the time, I was a sophomore at M.B. Smiley High School on the Northeast side of Houston and we were on blocked schedules which is, you take 7 classes a day but only one of the classes you take every other day. It was lunch time and I had B lunch because it was in order from; A lunch being freshman, B lunch sophomores, C lunch juniors, and D lunch seniors. After lunch, we had to go to our assigned homeroom class until the juniors got prepared to go, then we would go to our 5th period class which at the time was communication applications. Not being in homeroom for 30 minutes, I saw my cousin to my class to get me out. As I go downstairs, I saw my uncle and my other cousin rushing me to leave with them. One of my cousins told me that my mom was in the hospital, the other and my uncle didn’t say anything. Upon driving to the hospital, I kept asking questions, is mom okay? Is mom okay? What’s wrong with mom? As we’re driving up to L.B.J Hospital in Houston, TX, I saw my family standing in the hallway with the looks as if something had happened but was not speaking. Soon as I saw my sister, she had given me the news that mom was no longer with us. She passed away by a heart attack and a stroke. At that moment, I wasn’t your typical 15 year old girl; I was 15 without a mother who I thought would see me graduate in the next two years to come. A 15 year old who just started her sophomore year, the week before, a 15 year who had last seen her mother was when she woke up to the smell of breakfast and the actual last time talking to her was the day before when she called me asking about my social security number. Not knowing she wasn’t going to be living after that, but the number was for AAARP, a letter my sister and I received in the mail the day of her death saying; you both has received 7k thousand a piece from the death of Evelyn Ruth Wilkins. I started crying even harder, laying in my mother’s bed feeling her hand brushing my hair and being silly talking about a possum she killed that morning. My mother is the type of mother that every child wished they had. My mother was nice to everyone, even if they don’t deserve it. When she cooks, she cooks as if it was Thanksgiving dinner, making sure she had enough food for my niece and nephews just in case my sister brought them over to visit. Having parties for every occasion even some for a random day, everybody know to come to my house because my mom was cooking. I can say that on this day, I know my mother is proud of my sister and myself. We both are doing fine, both in college and life going well. My mother’s wish was for me to do better than my sister and graduate from high school and college, marry the man of my dreams and raise a nice family and get a good job. So far, I’ve accomplish 2 of 5 things because I graduate from Houston Community College on May 18, 2013.
Coming from a single parent home, I can say that I am truly blessed to have the family that I have, learning from the mistakes and things that I did wishing I can take those back but one of them, I am glad I didn’t have any kids because I want to live to see gray hair and grandkids running around. Without God, nothing is possible but with him, all things are possible. If it wasn’t for God, I would have killed myself a long time ago because the thoughts of my mother kept passing through my mind. I am a strong 23 year old, African American, with no children, glad to say that I am happy that I’ve experienced the things I did to learn from them. My mother is a proud woman and I am happy to know she is smiling down on us.