For 24 years of my life my mother made my life as simple as it could be. She would cook, clean, care, and lots more. Never a day would pass where I didn’t come home to her at home smiling and ready to know how my day went. She was selfless. It was always about other people. Always about our family. It was always about me. It wasn’t always sweet love there was also some tough love in there but always love. I was a mommas boy and I absolutely love it.

A little under a month before my 25th birthday she was diagnosed. I’ll never forget the words I heard over the phone from my father “it’s bad, real bad. It’s stage 4 stomach cancer.” I know we use the term a lot but I think for the first time in my life my heart sank. I don’t remember anything from the rest of that day. Just remember the feeling of numbness and fear. The next 54 days of my life went by in a blink of an eye. I have a few regrets in my life but none as big as how selfish I was in those 54 days. I should have visited more. I should have been there to remind her how much I cared but at the time I just kept saying “she gonna beat this. I know it” so I tried not to see her as much as I should have cause it made my heart hurt. Again selfish. I could only imagine how hers felt. Selfish me Asking her to try her best to be home for my birthday and she did. Not realizing that maybe she shouldn’t have.

In those 54 days I have memories that I will cherish forever. Shaving my mothers head and then shaving mine, having a picture of her flipping the bird, her meeting my now gf. The one that stands out the most is a few days before she passed. My nephew and I were heading to the gym and we stopped by to say hello. Everything was amazing had not seen my mother with that much spunk and life in a few weeks. We are getting ready to leave I’m holding her hand I lean in and give her a kiss on the forehead. As I go to walk away my mother squeezes my hand I turn around and she says “when I get out of here I’m going to start going to the gym with you” and smiles. I smiled back and told her “okay perfect” those were the last words my mother and I had.

The next couple of days she got very bad. I had plans for the weekend and I was going to cancel them but decided not to. I was out all weekend and worked all week. That Thursday morning when my father woke me up with a call asking to get him and my sister coffee and come to the hospital I found it strange but did it. I walk in say hello to the nurses and before I get to my mothers room I felt a very strong yet weird feeling I can’t describe but I suddenly knew something was wrong. I walked in my sister looked at me and hugs me while saying “she is gone Jay, mommy is gone” with tears running down her face. I remember my sister feeling so heavy. I sat her down and looked at my father he shook his head yes. I walked over sat down and held my moms hand as I cried and kept saying sorry. No one knew what I was apologizing for but at that moment I had never felt so selfish, never had such a big regret in my life. I wish I had spent so much more time with her. I at times feel like I never truly showed her how much she meant to me and how much I loved her. Something I will regret for my entire life. My heart broke that morning of September 4 2014.