Words can't describe how it feels to lose your mum, and above all how this feels at 21 years old. There are so many things I miss about her every single day. I miss being able to ask her for advice about my laundry, I miss hearing her comforting words on the end of the phone, I miss her cuddles, I miss the rare but beautiful sound of her jokes and laughter. My heart hurts a bit more every day knowing that there is so much of my life my Mummy will not be able to share with me - marriage, children and in my case, even my graduation ceremony next year. 

However, I am blessed in a million different ways to have even had her at all - despite her life being cut short so cruelly. My Mum was put on earth to have children, and she loved all four of hers with unfaltering devotion and care. You could never push her away (believe me, 15 year old me had tried!); she would never leave your side. She would do anything for her family, from attending the most pointless piano recitals and poetry readings to driving miles in the middle of the night to pick you up from a party - all to make sure her baby got home safely. She was always more concerned about everyone else's needs than her own - a quality that remained prevalent and forceful even during her cancer, treatment and last days. I will never forget visiting her in her last week at the hospice, holding her hand and telling her about the first class grade I had just received for one of my university assignments. She was weak, tired and reasonably uncommunicative but even in that moment she managed to squeeze my hand and say "Excellent, darling". In her last days, she still told me she loved me every single day, and smiled at me whenever she saw me. She was, and will always be, the best mummy ever.

Now she is gone, there are no words to aptly describe the pain I feel. As well as a Mummy, I've lost my best friend and a sacred mother-daughter bond that brought us so close - amazingly even closer over the last two years of her life. Although my entire family has had two years to come to terms with everything and begin the grieving process, nothing can ever prepare you for when it actually happens. Grieving is a laborious and long process and the only thing that can possibly cure grief is to grieve. The worst part of the whole thing is you start the process again, each day; each day you wake you start grieving all over again. 

There is a huge hole in my heart, but a hole that now means I carry her around with me all the time. I hear her voice telling me what to do when I'm cooking; I hear her disapproval when I'm getting my hair cut even shorter; I feel her hand still holding mine when I'm crying. I see signs all the time now that she's still here, somewhere..somehow. My Mum is not a physical being any more, but I am lucky enough to know I carry her in my heart and soul forever, and always will.

Cancer has taken so many things from me. It's taken a lot of my energy, it's taken a normal family life away, it almost took my degree and it took the woman who put me on earth and raised me so lovingly. However, there's things cancer can NEVER take from me: her spirit, her wisdom, her words and her love. And cancer cannot cripple my hope and ambition to live the duration of my own life making my mum so proud of me.

Sleep tight Mummy. I'll miss you forever, and love you even longer.

X X X 

I am currently fundraising for St Margaret's Hospice, where Mum spent the last 10 days of her life in such amazing care: https://www.justgiving.com/Charlea-Glanville2/