Traditionally moms are sources of wisdom, unconditional love, and secret holders for their daughters. In comparison, the word "Mom" is defined much differently to the girls who lost their moms before they could really learn what unconditional love, wisdom, and confidants were. To girls without a mom, the word "Mom" is the unknown, is sentimental, and a constant source of sorrow.

I lost my mother at age eight on August 9th, 2008. She was in hospice care for five months before she passed away peacefully in her sleep. I remember the night perfectly. I read her my favorite Scooby-Doo book until she fell asleep. Then my mom’s sister, Aunt Candi, treated my sister and me to ice cream with my cousins. When we returned home from the ice-cream shop it was close to 9 p.m. and none of us kids were tired.

We played with latex gloves, blowing them up and drawing chickens on them. It was 10 p.m. when my sister and I were told to go say goodnight to Nana and Papa on the front porch. My Aunt Candi went inside to check on my mom. A few moments later, she ran outside with tears streaming down her face and delivered the worst news I have ever heard in my life. My mom had just passed away.

That was the day the word "Mom" permanently changed.

Instead of wisdom, "Mom" now meant confusion. The confusion comes in waves.

First, there is sadness. You realize that mom won’t be able to pick you up from school. Mom won’t take care of you when you’re sick. You will never receive a cute letter in your sack lunch, written in the sparkly purple pen you love, again.

Then comes death and what that means. Death means relief for the sick and suffering. Death means no more chemo treatments or blood transfusions. Death means bright lights and heaven for the believers. To my mom, death meant watching over me throughout my life and guiding me alongside God without suffering.

Then, there is acceptance; you have to learn to accept that death was the best option. To wish my mom was still alive would be a wish to prolong her suffering. The word difficult does not even begin to explain how hard it is to be thankful that your mom died. You have to accept that it was for the best, yet I still struggle today with this concept.

After you finally understand death, the word "Mom" takes on a new meaning. "Mom" now becomes sentimental. I cherish everything that I was passed down. I revere her angel collection, her four Bibles, and her childhood purity ring. What was important to her is now important to me. I cherish every memory I have of her and her photos have become my best friend. I learn a lot about her from pictures. Her hair was ash-brown and pin straight, and her eyes were an icy, startling blue. I knew she was confident because she always looked straight into the camera with her gleaming eyes. She was strong-willed because her chin never dropped and her stare never faltered. I adore the fact that I grew to look just like her except her blue eyes were traded in for my hazel eyes.

Before I lost her, I was careless with her memory; I thought I had all my life to be with her. I never thought my time with her would be cut so short. Sadly, I have learned you must lose something to cherish it and that is how the definition of "Mom" shifted to sentimentalism.

Although I only hold pleasant memories of my mother, the word "Mom" is a constant source of sorrow. I had to endure pitiful glances from teachers and classmates’ parents. I was gifted a lot of “Oh Mother Mary, bless your soul sweethearts.” Casseroles came to the door in bulk, and it seemed that every female relative strived to become my sister and I’s new “mother figure,” as if we would forget my mother any second. Enduring the pity and prying relatives was difficult, but the biggest challenge was surviving the sorrow. The first step to surviving the sorrow was crying.

The most I ever cried was when I was told my mom had left us. I hid under my bed, wrapped in a giant blanket, and cried for hours into the folds of my dad’s old Ford t-shirt. My tears could have flooded the rolling hills of the Sahara Desert, but after that night I didn’t cry again until the funeral. I attempted to give a speech, since my sister had refused, but I regrettably could not finish because the dam had broken and the flood channels overflowed. My tears poured out endlessly for hours after she was buried. After that, I didn’t cry for weeks. I thought emotions were a sign of weakness. I decided it was better to bottle everything up, until one day I snapped. Emotions hit like a tidal wave and the riptide just pulled me further into the ocean.

After that episode, my father then put me in grief counseling where I finally learned that crying was part of surviving. To cry doesn’t mean you are weak; crying means that you are strong enough to face your sorrows head on.

The second step to survival is distraction. I began to read constantly and analyze everything I read. Whenever I was feeling sad I would pick up the nearest book and transport into a whole new world away from the pain. I started with books for little girls like the ‘Junie B. Jones’ series, but soon enough I had lost interest. I then switched to mystery books. Nancy Drew became my idol and by the time I was 11, I was reading at an average high school reading level. My sister picked up a similar mode of distraction: she wrote stories. The more we threw ourselves into other activities, the pain seemed to lessen.

The final step to surviving sorrow is realization. I had to realize that the sadness will always be there; I will always be sad on Mother’s Day when we made flower crowns for our moms. Mom’s birthday will always be a sad day, and my father will never be the same on their anniversary. It will always be painful to talk about my mother; counseling rarely ended with smiles. I accept that I will never be completely healed and I shouldn’t expect to be healed; a major part of my life is missing. The biggest realization though is that being sad, broken, and in pain is okay.

Although the word "Mom" doesn’t bring about positive thoughts all the time, "Mom" is more than sadness and pain. "Mom" is learning. I learned how to cope with loss, grief, and relish the past when I lost my mom. I gained wisdom far beyond my years and this wisdom enables me to help other girls without moms. I can teach them what took me years to learn. I can provide them an outlet for their grief and a voice for their sorrows. Sadly, I will never receive notes in that sparkly purple pen again, but I no longer need those affirmations to know my mom loves me. I now know that I will always have her with me, surrounding me in a protective blanket of her unconditional love.