Nicole G.’s Story

My name is Nicole (age 38), and I lost my mom Trish (age 60) in September 2023. I am learning how to be a motherless daughter, as a young mother myself.

My mom fought a courageous battle against stage IV bladder cancer for over 5 years. Though there is only a 14% survival rate past 5 years with this type/stage of cancer, my fiesty Glaswegian mother outlived those odds! She was especially determined to see as much of her sole grandchild's life as she could, and my mom passed a week before my daughter's 4th birthday.

My mom and I had a complex relationship growing up, as she was a very young mother with a lot of unexamined traumas. Through my own counselling, I know in my heart my mom showed up everyday with the tools and resources she had. We had a heart to heart last conversation just before she passed where she acknowledged a lot of the traumatic past we shared.

Through motherhood, I came to understand my mom in a much deeper and empathic way. I shared this with her during our last chat: I understand now how exhausted and overburdened she was, doing the majority of household and childrearing tasks.

I miss sending my mom photos of her granddaughter, her pride and joy who looks more like her grandmother each day. My mom was devastated she'd miss all the future milestones in my daughter's life, with Kindergarten coming up this fall, I feel her absence acutely. 

I miss asking my mom about things my daughter is experiencing, and how I was as a child at my daughter's age. I told my mom she will always live on through me and her granddaughter, who shares her feisty Glaswegian spirit. Sometimes my daughter looks at me with a particular expression that takes my breath away - an identical look my mom used to give me. 

I feel that my mom says hi from the other side often: when I see lime green cars (her fave color), when Andrea Bocelli (her fave artist) sang her fave song during the In Memoriam segment at the Oscars (she used to host Oscar pools), when I see her name in print, etc. She lives on when I hear her advice in my head, or when I give the same advice to my daughter. I miss you mom and I love you so much, always.

Here's a photo of us at her 60th birthday, and with her beloved granddaughter.