Hello, I am 19 yo,

Last Sunday was mother's day for some of you. Since I live in France the date hasn't passed yet. So you know what I am going to talk about. I'll First give you my story so you guys can try to understand and because even I LOVE talking about my mom even when I personally don't know her that much.

My family lives on a French island in far from France ( around 9 thousand inhabitants). We were in France with my mother and my sister during summer vacation 2010, my father had to finish some work at home before joining us in France.

One week before my father arrival, my mother died before my eyes along with my sister ( me 3 yo and sis 5 yo). I remember that day as it was yesterday.

It was a sudden death, we were holding hands on the way to the garden and she collapsed dead, nothing graffic. Me and my sister stood by her side for like 2 hours crying until my grandpa returned from work and the rest is history.

One thing important is that we were not in the middle of nowhere they were multiple neighbours 30 meters away from were she collapsed and I did nothing, I never reached for help and I believe to this day that her death is my fault.

Especially when like five years after I heard on TV the story of a 3 yo just like me whom father was having a stroke and rode his bike on the road for like 1 km to search for help and it saved his father life.

This was my first ever memory and one of the 2 memories I have of my mother, . The other one is weird : I remember there was on my mother's leg and by trying to remove it, she launched it on me and I started crying.

On such a tiny island the news quickly spread of what happened and from that point I was the boy who lost his mother.

Growing up was weird, my father was never ready to take of 2 kids by himself and had to work extra extra hard to provide for 2 with his plumber job (best plumber of the island for sure because he was always busy and we never lacked of anything for sure, except attention on I'd say)

What was painful and intriguing is knowing that on that Island I was one of the few that didn't know my mother.

I learned through everyone and everything who could have been my mom. Every encounter with a stranger was an anecdote about her. She had her office in our house so I spent days in that room collecting information about her by searching through notes, Computer, what she read, what she listened to, etc.

But as I said, I learned what my mother what COULD have been. There is always this distance between her and me. I can never take for granted what I learn about her as in I know that this is true but I can not feel it because it's not something you are supposed to learn but to experience. And this the case for everything surrounding her.

To this day, I still wonder what mother's love feel like. When I see a kid hugging his mother, a movie where the mother rushes to her child crying, a video talking about what every mothers : I don’t relate, I don’t feel good or sad about it, I just feel empty and a bit jealous because I wonder.

About 2 year ago I realised that I don’t love my mother, I

love the idea that I made of her thanks to everything I learned. I WOULD have loved her.

I understood this when someone told me (even if it was like the 1000th I was told) :

"Your mother would be proud/happy that ...." and I felt empty and couldn't picture my mother proud of me/ happy for me.

I went through multiple phases throughout my life with my mother, from being curious about her, to making jokes about her death and being Stoic about heartless abou teverything ( my mom is dead so no big deal") , to feeling guilty for her death, to being very mindful about what she could have been to me. Something for sure I am obsessed about her.

And so last year during my final highschool year, I remembered that I didn't know my mother voice. So I started to search crazy for a piece of audio or video with her on it (took me 15 years to realised that I know). And tge only thing that I found was a hommage video made by her students with pieces video they took during their school trip. Her voice was really distorted and the video was of bad quality but it was something.

I watched it and hearing her voice I cried a lot and had a panic attack because of the guilt I feel towards her.

To this day I cannot rewatch without panicking.

Now that I am in Uni, I've realised that my life have been dedicated to my mom instead of me. It makes me sad has I know whatever I do it won't change how how I feel about her.

My question is : How can do I move on as I have can't forget her, I'll always feel some guilt about that day. And all of this without really knowing her as my mom.

PS: I am trying to move on because many decisions I made throughout my life were driven by her.

(French)

J’ai l’impression d’avoir un peu gâché mon enfance tout en étant satisfait de mon enfance mais je ne veux pas que ça impacte mon futur , par exemple les études que je fais actuellement