I'm writing because I have been told it may help with some feelings I have been having. I am 19, and have just been engaged on 10/30/2022. I am new to the whole aspect of seeing myself as an almost married woman, but one thing I know for sure is that I want my mother there for all of it. I am terrified she won't make it there so we have set our wedding only a few short months from now. About three years ago now, I remember my mother's first symptoms of cancer, what we thought were just side effects of less than average oral hygiene. My mother's first sore showed up on the right side of her tongue, she could do nothing but eat mainly liquids. It wasn't scary then, not until she went to the dentist and they told her it was something they had never seen before and sent her off to the ear, nose, and throat doctor. I remember the day down to the minutes of the time she had gotten her first biopsy. She texted me with the results before barely looking at them herself. The words squamous cell carcinoma ring throughout my mind daily. I drowned in tears that night and many nights after that not knowing where to go or what to do. She has always been my best friend and the thought of living without her has scared me since I was a child, and even more now. She was given the terminal one year to live a few months ago and has been fighting for her life with the cancer spreading throughout her lungs, throat and all of her toungue, and I am terrified. So now, I plan my whole life around her. I want her to witness everything that her children can do. Within the last year, she has become a grandmother, lost her dad, and has now witnessed one of her children getting engaged, but the only thing still wrapping my mind is if she'll be here to watch me get married. I have so far planned having her and my father walk me down the aisle, me and her having our own "mother daughter dance" and so much more to commemorate what she means to me. I know I will be a mess when she leaves and I never want her to but how does a 19 year old lose her mother and is just supposed to move on? She won't be there for the birth of my children, for my sister's wedding, for birthdays or anniversaries. I don't know if I'll ever be me again after her. She knows all my deepest secrets and has saved my life more than once. I need some hope. Does anyone have any tips on how to go on about life after a loved one passes from this terrible disease?
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