I was slowly but surely becoming a woman and making decisions on what type of woman I should be. I was talking back and rolling my eyes (more than normal). I was insecure and clumsy. I was indecisive (still am) and confused. But all of a sudden a train came rollin’ right on in. It crashed into me head on. The lights were so bright that I couldn’t move out of the way in time. Adolescents without a mother….was a nightmare. I was fourteen when my mother died.
My normal teenage development would pause. At times I believed that I missed it altogether. That I just skipped over it to the next phase of life and what little bit I had the year before her death was all I “needed.” With everything I had endured I simply wanted to keep my head above water. Those difficult growing pains were not in my vision of my future.
But that’s not what happens when death hits. Yes you pause. Life stands still. You keep moving, but your soul is still in that place; that place of shock…of heartache and panic. I still had to go through those stages that make us so very human. It just looked quite different than what I saw my friends going through.
My adolescent growth was minimized to behind the scenes moments of confusion and awkwardness. I was on pause for a few years before I felt that I could move on in any capacity. When I was ready to hit play again, I didn’t have the support that I once had. That’s the crazy thing about grief. When grief hits you and it’s someone close to you like a mother, sibling, child, etc., the pain doesn’t just disappear like it does for others impacted by the death who are at a distance.
I was in a relationship at the time and my need for this adolescent growth would show its ugly head at times. Sometimes around the dinner table, sometimes in how I treated my inner circle of loved ones, sometimes in my inability to empathize with everyday struggles, and sometimes just in plain normal girly ways. (Example: I am incapable of making any decisions on food 99.9% of the time….and sometimes because of my picky Pete attitude I get hangry…this also still happens occasionally).
I remember feeling like what I was going through was okay. I knew when I said stupid stuff or was a little rude. I always did my best to apologize. That’s my brightside to it all coming a little late. It wasn’t one big burst of drama (THANK GOODNESS). Even in feeling like it was okay, I found myself wanting to explain to others what was going on because they didn’t understand. In their expressions of disappointment, I cowered in my own disappointment of myself. I felt alone. I felt like no one understood.
No explanation could have helped them understand, but the lesson I want everyone to know is that if you have a young child in your home for whatever reason. Love them. Believe in them. Make a difference in their lives, because you do not know the type of impact, negative or positive, you might have. As much as someone can tell you of their story, if they choose to do so, it will never fully equip you to understand them in all of their realness.
As those years of extreme growth and transition began to take place, there were 
several people who opened their doors and their hearts to me; people who loved me in spite of it; people who extended grace and compassion; people who made me the woman I am today and gave me the platform for change and difference that I stand on. Over the next month or so I am going to share with you those beautiful souls.
Whether you are a biological mother or not….I guarantee that at some point in your life you will or have mothered someone. And how incredibly brave is it to mother the motherless daughters of this world. From one herself, thank you for your love and big warm hugs (cookies too).
Happy Mother’s Day Beautiful,
Till Heavens End,
Savannah
Bright side of Brokenness 