I lost my mom. I lost her the moment she started getting sick. Physically and mentally sick. She got sick from a surgery she had when I was in fourth grade, and was hospitalized every six weeks, for about a week at a time. It was becoming routine. When she lost all of her weight, I lost her. She became unhappy, and mean. She was not my mom anymore. I lost her.

Freshman year started out the happiest year for me. I had lost a lot of weight, finally feeling beautiful and happy. I had friends I could depend on, and everything seemed to be going great. I was finally, finally, genuinely happy. Then, December came, and I was diagnosed with a lifelong chronic illness. I thought it was only affecting me, and I was beyond wrong for that.

I had a lot of support through the transition of life with diabetes. I thought my mom was the strongest person ever because she seemed to be handling the situation so well. She wasn’t though.

A few months after my diagnosis, our house sold. It suddenly wasn’t ours anymore. The house I grew so much in was ripped from underneath me, and I was so, so, so sad and lost. But, I had to keep my smile for everyone, my friends mostly, because the moment I looked sad, they asked what was wrong and I didn’t want them to know I was literally breaking on the inside.

All of this was weighing down on my mom at once, and I didn’t even realize it.

A couple of weeks after we began packing up and looking for somewhere to live, my sister came to pick me up from school. It was the last Wednesday of the tri, and we were playing Kahoot in Mr. Kent’s third hour Honors English class. I always get a feeling when the class phone rings that it is going to be for me. The class phone rang, and I knew it was mine. There was a bad and weird feeling though. Mr. Kent said my sister was outside waiting.

Usually, if she comes to pick me up, it’s because she’s taking me to lunch. This time though, she had this look that I can’t even describe. It was a look that I know if I were to see it again, my life was going to change. I got in the car and she gave me a forced smile and tears started welling up in her eyes. She started saying how much she, my dad, my mom and my brother loved me, and my head was spinning. What was going on?

“Mom is in jail.”

Four words. Four short, painful, life changing words. Words that even know make me choke up and make me sick to my stomach. Four words. Four words changed my whole damn life on the blink of an eye, and God, I was mad.

I hit the door, screamed and cried so hard that I didn’t know if I was ever going to be able to breathe the same again. The only thing I could ask was, why? Why would she take those pills. We weren’t struggling, our lives seemed great. Why?

It wasn’t until 11:30 that night I found out that my mom was depressed and suicidal. She planned on killing herself with those pills. How do you cope with all of this hurt at once? You can’t. It hits you so hard that you feel like the world is breaking up beneath your feet and you’re going to fall through any minute. I cried more and more and my mom just cried with me.

My mom said she was going to try to commit suicide on March 11th. That day is forever implanted in my mind as the day I almost lost my mom, and March 16th was the day I got her back. Not fully, but almost. It was then I realized I had lost her long ago, and she was slowly becoming mom again.

My whole perspective on life changed that night. She explained that one conversation with someone that she used to know changed her mind. She said that the reason she asked if I could sleep in her room for months on end was because I was the only thing that kept her from going through with it.

That hit me hard. I wasn’t at home the night she planned on taking the pills. She said she was hoping it would stop her heart and everyone would think it was a heart attack, because her dad had them at her age. I wasn’t home, and if she hadn’t had the conversation and I wasn’t there to sleep in her room with her, she wouldn’t be here anymore.

I don’t go a day without telling her I love her. I try to talk to someone I don’t often because Heaven knows you might be the thing that saves them, just like that person saved my mom. When she asks if I can sleep in her room, I don’t say no, because I realized I took all those nights for granted.

I lost my mom. She wasn’t herself anymore. She was mean and sad and not my mom.

I almost lost my mom. She wasn’t herself anymore. She was suicidal and sad and almost took those pills.

I now have my mom back. She is not lost. She is herself. She is not sad or suicidal. She is my mom again. I lost her and almost lost her all at once. Now, go tell your mom you love her. Give her a hug. Tell her how much she means to you, because you never know when you’ll lose her, and if you’re not as lucky as me, you won’t get her back.