The Twists and Turns of Life

When I was born in 1962 I thought life was good. I had two parents, a twin sister, and an older brother. We lived in an apartment until my sister and I were eleven, and then we moved into a house. My brother was twenty-one years old so he moved onto his own apartment. I was the luckiest girl in the world.

We were the normal family with chaos and the antics of being a family. I was blessed to have my parents around in my life.

At the age of thirty my parents were still together. Of course their marriage went through their ups and downs, but all marriages develop this kind of turmoil. I don't know a marriage that doesn't go through frustrations that might sometimes end up in divorce. My parents loved each other, so they dealt with the controversies and the marriage burdens of trying to compromise and get to know each other.

I had a best friend in my life, and it was my mother. I loved her so much, and we talked about three or four times a day. I enjoyed communicating with my mother because she was so honest, real, and like an angel in the midst of my life. I was so negative at times, but she kept encouraging me, and was my supportive mode.

My mother believed in my writing, and was also my biggest fan. She read my work, gave her criticism on it, and was adamant in me making all my dreams come true. When I sold my first short story, I was thrilled to be published, but before I could enjoy my success a twist entered my life, and it was the most devastating feeling in the world.

In 1995 my mother left this world. It was a total shock to me when she got sick. My mother never got sick in her life, so I was stunned, but I knew she'd get better. I never thought she would leave me. I nursed my mother back to health, and prayed for her. At times my mother was so sick; I thought she wasn't going to survive. My mother was plump, and when she got sick she lost so much weight. I had a bad feeling that she wasn't going to make it, but I didn't want to think about it.

My mother couldn't hold anything down and she puked most of the time. I didn't know what she was thinking, or how she was feeling. I'd have given anything to know her thoughts. I was so close to her, but again I didn't feel so close to her at all. She'd stare at me for hours on end, and the stare was so deep as if she was looking into my soul, or trying to tell me something.

My mother was very spiritual and religious, and she read the Bible all the time. The last few weeks of her life she'd speak in tongues and it would amaze me when I listened to her. I believed she was talking to God, and had her own communication with him.

I have a feeling that my mother knew she was going to leave this earth, and move onto heaven, but she never discussed it with me. I was planning on her getting better and the things she was going to do, but at times she just stared at me. I never thought she'd leave me.

I believed I was going to have my mother for the rest of my life. I was 35 years old when my mother left me. It was in June of 1995. I was with her on Wednesday taking care of her. She kept staring at me, but she never said that much to me. I never thought anything was going to happen. I went Home, and at three o'clock on a Thursday in the morning, my father called me and told me that he couldn't wake my mother up.

I didn't think anything about it because my mother took so much medication, it'd make her sleep for hours. I told him to shake her, and not to panic. He didn't think she was alive, so I called my sister and her boyfriend took us over to my mother's house. My mother was lying in her chair in her house, in her bedroom. She looked like she was sleeping to me, so I shook her a few times, but she didn't wake up. I tried waking her up, and prayed to