Dead.
It took a little while for my brain to register the word.

Dead.
No longer alive...Ceasing to exist...Gone.

Dead.
My face remained blank and unbelieving for a few seconds, and then the tears forced their way to my eyes, and I buried my face in my pillow.

It was Monday, March 17th, 2008 when I received the news. I had stayed home that day because I wasn't feeling well that weekend. On saturday night I'd had a stomach ache. Funny, now that I think about it, because that was actually night that she passed away. I like to think that I could sense it, somehow, that she was dying. I often try to convince myself that I had some kind of special mother-daughter connection with my birth mom that night. Then I remind myself that I only want to believe that. It was more than likely just a coincidence.

That Monday morning, my dad and mom had both come in my room to tell me that Christy, my biological mother, had passed away. I have always called her by her first name, despite the fact that she was my mom. I was shocked, but not sad right away. The tears came quickly, but the sadness came later. It was hard to feel sad about a total stranger dying. I hadn't seen Christy since I was two, maybe three years old. I have no memory of her, whatsoever. That's why I had always believed my dad when he told me she was sick, which is why we had to leave her. Sick with what, he never did say, just that she was sick. That afternoon when he had come in my room to tell me that she had died, he told me that she forgot to pick up her medicine which caused her young death. Being only ten years old, I believed him.

An empty feeling filled the pit of my stomach, with the knowledge that I would never get to physically meet her like my dad had always promised. That was probably the hardest thing to face...the fact that I would never meet her on earth. At the same time, finding out that she died was like finding out that your great aunt, Susie, whom you never met before, died. Her death was a sad thing, but I wasn't too saddened by it. How are you supposed to react when someone tells you that a complete stranger, who just so happened to be your mother, has died? I was sad that I would no longer have a chance of ever meeting her, but it wasn't as if my whole world was turned upside down. I was still a blissfully ignorant ten year old little girl. I never could have imagined the infinite amount of questions her death would leave me with.

A few weeks had passed, I think, when her funeral was held. My adopted mom, Teresa, had asked me if I wanted her to attend the funeral or not. I knew she would have understood if I had told her no. After all, it was a sensitive subject that didn't really involve her. I said yes, I wanted her to be there with me. Though not biological, she was still my mother and I needed her there for the support.

It was a sunny day in around March or April probably. I wore a long sleeved black dress. Squeezed in between my parents, I remember staring at her casket from the pew which was a few rows back from the altar. I could only imagine what lay inside it, for I had not attended her Wake. I didn't want to. Now that I think about it, it was probably I good decision. My only mental image of her is the picture that I hang on the shelf next to my bedside. The photo emphasizes her young face, sparkling eyes, and kind smile. She was absolutely beautiful. I was afraid if I saw her face in that casket, my vision of her would never be the same. I didn't want to remember her like that. Sickly. Unmoving.

After the funeral, I looked at the pictures of my deceased mother displayed throughout the church. Many people whom I had never seen in my life came up to me, saying things I suppose you tell all young children who have lost loved ones. She loved you so much. She wanted to see you, she just didn't want you to see her like that. You look so much like your mother. I smiled, shyly, and nodded my head.

Soon I met my half-brother, Riley. Christy was our mother, but we didn't have the same father. He was around the age of 13 for the funeral. I remember some women that I didn't know made us take a picture together. They asked Riley to put his hand on my shoulder for it. It was very awkward. I tried to avoid talking to him for the rest of the time spent in the church by looking at the posters hung around each wall of the building. A second grade class must have been making their first communion. At that time, I was about as innocent as a second grader. Nobody had told me how my biological mother really died. I was still under this childish illusion that she was "sick."

I can't remember how much longer it was until my dad explained to me how Christy really died.

Drugs.
My dad had always told me she was just sick. Receiving that news that she died from an overdose changed everything. I was no longer an innocent child with a mother who had passed away from an uncontrollable illness. I was a young lady whose heart was burdened with the fact that her mother had basically killed herself. Even now I wonder to myself if she ever really loved me. Because, if she truly loved my brother and I, why didn't she stop? Why did she continue to use when her children needed her? Didn't she know what she was doing to herself? To me? And now, as a teenager, I find myself wondering if she meant to kill herself that March day, years ago.

In my mind, I have always pictured some kind of joyous reunion in Heaven where the two of us run to each other in slow motion and dramatically embrace. But what if it's not like that? From all that I have found out after my dad compelled upon me that crushing news, Christy did not want hardly anything to do with me. When my dad took me away from her, I didn't even cry. Now, think about it, when you take a two year old away from his or her mother, what will their reaction be? They will obviously cry for their mom because she is their source of comfort. Even though a toddler's mind doesn't understand it, they are their mother's unconditional love. The fact that I didn't even cry for Christy says a lot.

My dad told me that after we left, he would sometimes bring me back to her for the weekend or night, just so we could see each other. But he stopped bringing me to her because every time he would pick me back up, he would find that I was still in the same clothes that he had dropped me off in, two days before. I usually would have not been bathed or had my diaper changed, and basically just not taken care of.

Probably one of the most difficult things I have been told is that she didn't want my current mom, Teresa, to adopt me. When I first heard that, I smiled a bit on the inside. I thought it was so motherly of her not to let Teresa adopt me because only she, Christy, could ever be my mother. Not that I don't love my mom now, I really have been blessed to have such a wonderful, caring woman to step in and be my mom when Christy couldn't. I just thought the fact that she wouldn't let Teresa adopt me showed that she still did love me, which is all I ever wanted from her. But, later, both of my parents unknowingly diminished all of my hope I felt when they told me that the only reason Christy didn't let Teresa adopt me was because she wanted to make it harder on my dad for leaving her. I could have cried.

He then explained how she attempted to steal all of his money, actually succeeding a little bit, and overall making his life much harder than it needed to be. It's stories like those that make me second guess how much Christy really loved me. It's hard to ever get a straight answer because one minute, my dad will be explain how selfish and angry she was, and then the next he will talk of how wonderful she was and how much she loved me. I suppose I'll never truly know.

When her drug addiction first started, she was only using prescription medicine. I don't know what she was taking when she passed away, but I can only hope that it wasn't something awful like heroin or meth. A part of me doesn't want to find out. Knowing that she was a drug addict is hard enough, no need to find out every detail of what her addiction entailed. I don't like to talk about or think about her problem. I would rather look at old photos of us together. We were happy in the moments captured on film, and it really looked like we loved each other. One photo in particular sticks out in my mind. I must have been almost a year old, and she was feeding me a cupcake and laughing at the blue icing covering my mouth. She looked so beautiful and young, but most of all it looked like she loved me as only a mother could.

After all of the negative things I have been told regarding my birth mom, it is hard to imagine her truly loving me with all her heart as everyone says a mother should. But, I still hold in my heart some childish hope that she smiles down on me from Heaven. I hope she is proud of me, as her only daughter. I hope that she rejoices at all of my accomplishments. I hope she is happy with the decisions I've made and the ones to come. And last but not least, I hope, I really, honestly hope that she loves me just as much as I love her.