It’s an odd thing when a parent dies. For one, I never expected this so early in life. I thought I had so many more years with her full of road trips, and phone calls, and marathons of our favorite shows. We had a trip planned out in the fall that she was so happy to have my boyfriend joining us on.

As a disabled adult child I still relied on her for so much … including financially. She covered the cost of my private health insurance since it was through her employer, my cellphone was on her plan, and she’d cover my water bill if I was short on cash. The past few years I’ve been very adamant about managing my health care on my own and I’m so glad I did … but now she’s not there for backup.

Last month I was in a depressive daze. Growing up with untreated depression & anxiety, my mind would be freaking out in a situation like this, lost in a downward spiral with me scratching my arm till it bled. But now my anxiety is being treated and part of me doesn’t know what to do because I’m not spiraling. My depression is still there; a sense of overwhelming dread & inability to act on things, the longing to crawl in a hole and hide from the world.

I made it past her memorial and now I’m forcing myself to begin picking up the pieces. My family is helping me with the estate stuff; my one aunt helped me begin going through her files & my other uncle is helping me with legal stuff. My dad took me to a concert the weekend after the service; a much needed break from the world.

There are days this seems like a bad dream. That I’ll wake up and she’ll be alive; that she’s just at work and I’m waiting to hear her footsteps up the stairs. But they never come.