What My Mom’s Unexpected Death Taught Me About Living at 37
No one ever teaches you how to live without a parent.
No matter how old I get, everything I do is underpinned by making my Mom proud.
Every positive reinforcement I received as a kid for holding a door open, tidying my room, being respectful of other adults or doing well on the cricket team still lingers with me into adulthood.
I’m only human. While I may not always get it perfect, I’ve instinctively relied on this as my benchmark, shaping my values.
“You are my proudest achievement,” my Mom told me after a heart-to-heart conversation when she returned to England to visit me for the first time.
I’ll never forget it.
When she walked into my home, her eyes beamed with pride, and when she sat down on my couch, I could see the enthusiastic, almost giddy young girl in her.
We both knew the protocol whenever we’d see each other: crank the kettle on and make a cuppa.
Mom lived in Cape Town, South Africa. She immigrated there when I was 21, but I set up shop here in the UK, following my passion and pinning my hopes on becoming a professional cricketer.
One cup of tea would usually result in 10, and the conversation would always bottleneck towards what she thought of me and how proud she was.
I’ve never felt a love as unrestrained and genuine as hers from anyone else.
When we chatted until the early morning hours that first night she arrived in the UK, I sensed she wanted to tell me something.
She stopped and paused, then looked me square in the eyes:
“Jay, you have no idea how much I love you. You are my proudest achievement”.
It was the older brother talk you get when you’re the firstborn. I knew she meant every word, and she knew I took it to heart.
Her pride in me, regardless of any floor, was like a reassuring fire in my belly, motivating me to make her even more proud.
It’s a light that has never gone out.
The phone call every person dreads.
It was around 7 am, and I was still in bed.
It was summer here in the UK. Mom’s flight was booked to arrive in a fortnight, and we were both excited for her visit for the first time in two years because the pandemic fiasco prevented international travel.
It still grates on my nerves thinking about the lost time and memories that could have been made.
But that morning, everything froze. My brother’s call delivered the dreaded news, his voice trembling: “Jay, it’s not good, not good, man. It’s Mom. She’s on life support. It’s bad, bro.”
I remember prying for more information through his tears, searching for a glimmer of hope in the conversation: “William, what happened? Is she breathing? How bad are they saying it is?”
He explained that Denise, our Mom, had a stroke and collapsed while pulling off the driveway in her car. She then fell into the road, trying to open her door.
That was more detail than I was ready to hear.
In tears, I booked a flight from Birmingham (UK) and arrived in Cape Town the following day. That walk from the car park to her hospital bed is something I’ll never forget for the rest of my life.
The nurses pulled back the curtain, and there she was, unresponsive but at peace.
Mom couldn’t get oxygen around her body, and as I arrived, the machine stopped supporting her heart.
As I sat there sobbing, her heart rate began to drop. You could see the resigned expression on the nurse’s face, as if this was all a formality. But it’s as if Mom hung on and waited for the three men in her life to arrive at her bedside. And when we did, she let go.
I watched the woman who looked at me like I was her universe die in front of me, and the unfairness of it all changed how I viewed life.
Every aspect is now different.
Nothing feels too important when you realise what truly matters.
I often sit by myself, thinking back to when I let Mom’s calls ring out because I was out with friends or, as a kid when she’d get home, I’d shut my eyes, pretending to be asleep on the couch for no apparent reason.
She’d call my name, “Hey boy, I’m home”, and I’d not respond. Silly things we do as kids, and if there were a clock, I’d turn it back to those wasted moments.
My mind, ever since she passed away, has been wired towards keeping her memory alive.
Every scenario where I recall deleting her voice notes to create more storage on my phone or throwing out old birthday cards with long, meaningful messages because I needed the cupboard space fills me with guilt.
I’d think about the times she’d buy me a book for my birthday, and I’d playfully tell her off for writing her birthday note on the inside of the cover. So she stopped, and now I wish she hadn’t.
I’ve never lost anyone close to me before, so I can’t call on any pattern recognition of how you’re supposed to cope. There is no instruction manual.
The mixed emotions I have around her unexpected death still aren’t making any sense.
I used to see people mourning the loss of a loved one and read comments online where they’d say, “I think about you every day.” But until you experience loss, you see those comments as a nice sentiment without genuinely understanding that it’s true.
You do think about them every day.
It’s like she’s always here.
Grief is not a competition, but to me, honouring Mom’s legacy is.
I avoided writing this piece because I don’t enjoy a pity party or for anyone to feel sorry for me.
I see how relatable and how common it is for people my age to lose a parent. I now have this newfound respect for anyone grieving the loss of a significant person in their life.
Becoming the person my Mom always bragged to her friends at work about is the person I want to become. Kind, caring, hard-working, and most of all, likeable.
I had lost some of those elements in my life, getting caught up in trying to ascend to the next rung of my career and neglecting all the important stuff, like personal relationships.
All the things I worried about in the past, like getting a better job, getting a business off the ground, and getting into better shape, evaporated, and so did all the insecurities that shaped my mindset.
Soon after my mother died, I had a moment of clarity and thought, “Why am I chasing this stuff? None of this nonsense matters.”
All the things I had chased in my life weren’t all they were cracked up to be, but, in an ironic twist, they became accessible. This terrible event unlocked all the bottled-up fake fear because a purpose I never asked for was driving me.
I try to prioritise the relationships that mean the most to me, cutting off anything that tries to bring me down, including my old internal conflict.
Everything feels more binary.
As I type on this keyboard, push myself in fitness, grow my career and treat others with kindness, I can only imagine how proud my Mom would be. What cuts the deepest is everything she’ll be missing out on.
I’ll keep trying to embrace the present.
While still honouring her past.
Well you had me in tears… 😢Am sure she’d be very proud of you. Her legacy lives on within you❤️