A year on and I can picture you at peace vividly right after you left us. I wish I knew the regrets I’d have. You were still burning hot when we left you even though we had been cleaning the blood off your face and neck and making you “comfortable” without that stupid mask you hated. Your body temperature was still blazing and I now wish I’d stayed with you longer, at least until you began to cool. I miss your peaceful face, how the years and pain had fallen away and left you pretty and relaxed. I didn’t really recognise you in the chapel of rest and that’s why I wish I’d stayed with you longer in the hospital. I had my mum back, you weren’t in there but you were still who I recognised and while looking at you left that gulf of grief, it took away my anxiety of the previous 26 hours… which have strangely been twisting my stomach since the day before yesterday. Not today though, today I wake and as I did a year ago, I try to force myself to sleep again because I don’t want to think and face what’s happened. My body feels heavy and empty and I just feel defeated. I know it won’t last but it shocks me how all of those feelings from a year ago have replicated themselves within once again. The one feeling that fills me more than anything aside from the obvious love for my mum, is pride. It blows me away every day, the woman you were, the mother you were, your strength and love for your family and your resilience to overcome all of the bad things in order to be that lioness figure for us. I wish I was half the mum that you were. I’m just glad I’m becoming the woman you were… better late than never.