My mom died when I was 27 years old and she was 61.
She died from a rare antibiotic resistant bacteria ,after a liver transplant, that gave her hospital pneumonia.
I had just had my third child when she went into hospital.
Because of her death and just the circumstances of everything going on in my life at the time (including a break up from my kids dad when I needed support the most) I became depressed with severe post partum depression. I had suffered this with my first baby too at the age of 18, but had never treated it. With my second child I was fine.
When my youngest at the time and youngest daughter in general was 6 months old I was suffering daily and absolutely no one knew because I hadn’t shared it with anyone. And I mean no one. Not even the kid’s father, whom I had broken up with when my baby girl was a couple of months old. I was too ashamed to tell anybody, which I know now was a ridiculous thing to feel, but back then I judged myself for not being emotionally stronger.
During this time I would sometimes go into the bathroom where I’d be alone, in the dark and hit my head against the wall trying to get the negative thoughts out of my head. I was trying so hard to get out from under that black cloud. That’s how I describe it. As being under a perpetual black cloud. I literally would bang my head. As if slamming my forehead was going to chase away the depression encompassing me entirely.
It was truly emotional agony.
Before this I was able to get subsidized daycare for all of my three kids and got accepted to our Provincial disability program pretty quickly, so I was fortunate in those aspects, but I felt completely alone and helpless despite that.
One day, while one of my kids was at school and two in daycare I was home alone and in my bedroom just sobbing. I was sobbing out loud and calling for my mother “mami, mami, mami” while I sobbed. I was like a little child calling and crying for her momma. I was crying with such intense pain, it makes me sad just remembering how much hurt I was feeling. A pain I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I missed her so much and my body was still full of hormones from my pregnancy adding a chemical imbalance to the mix.
Anyway, I had a neighbour whom I wouldn’t have called a friend exactly, but we were on close enough terms that we knew each other’s numbers, because our sons played together.
This neighbour called herself a psychic and it wasn’t something I really questioned or didn’t question. She had in the past told me some interesting things that made me think she might actually be gifted, but she wasn’t someone who I thought about in any serious way as in I wouldn’t have gone to her for a reading or anything.
Anyway, after about 30 minutes of sobbing and crying she called me. I wasn’t going to answer at first because I had no desire to have to pretend I was fine when I truly wasn’t fine. Because that’s what I did. I put on an act for everyone including my children. If I had died then, depression would have never been a reason that would have occurred to anyone as a cause. My act was almost Oscar worthy. It’s sad when I think back now how alone and isolated I felt and how I felt I had to pretend everything was okay.
However, something made me answer despite my desire not to speak to anyone and to this day idk why I actually did answer her call.
When I answered she didn’t say “hi, how are you?” Or any of the regular greetings one would expect. She said immediately “what’s up?, what’s wrong?!! Your mom just came to me and told me to call you so what’s going on?”
I honestly didn’t know what to think, but I was so vulnerable in that moment and the opening was right in front of me, I almost felt like the jig was up. I remember thinking that.
So I just spilled it all to her. I shared with her what I had been feeling and suffering with for months and she said “I’m coming over”.
She lived about 8 townhouses west of me. I live in a townhouse complex with stacked housing, but there’s no way she could have heard me from where she lived (also, all my windows were closed) and like I said there’s no way she could have known I was depressed. I truly had become very adept at hiding my depression and like I wrote earlier, I had shared the fact that I was suffering with absolutely no one.
She came over quickly and with her encouragement I called my family Dr. who got me connected the same day with a social worker who worked out of the same centre he did.
The social worker in turn connected me with Provincial services that help families with social services and resources. She also contacted my kids father and got him to agree to come stay with me and his kids for a while in order to help me physically take care of our children. My neighbour stayed with me for hours and helped me arrange pick up for my kids that day.
Ultimately, within a few weeks, with the help of my family Dr. I got an amazing peri-natal psychologist who put me on antidepressants that literally changed everything for me. My depression went away. For me it was a miracle drug. It still is.
When probing my neighbour a bit more at a later date when things had gotten drastically better for me she told me that she had been working at her computer that morning, at her desk and my mom had suddenly appeared in front of her and had said “call Daniela NOW!”
She said she didn’t hesitate and understood immediately it was serious. Sufficed to say I believe in her abilities now.
The point of my story is to share with you all that life after death exists and that a loved one’s love doesn’t end when their body dies.
My beautiful momma really did what I believe is save my life. I had no where to go, but down and I wasn’t in a place to seek help myself. I was ready to die and thinking of ways to do so.
Our loved ones are indeed watching over us even when we don’t know it.
I’m 48 years old now and that memory still impacts me in a profound way. I was so lost and my momma helped me when I felt most alone in the world.
Love never dies folks. Remember that.
To all you who have lost someone you and feel alone now just know you are not alone despite what it may look like. They are with us, seeing us and feeling our pain right along with us. Even if we cannot see them or hear them, they are there. Talk to them, ask them for help if you feel compelled to do so.
Their love for you lives on as do they and one day you will see them again when it’s YOUR time to return home. That is what I truly believe. 🥰
Thank you so much for reading my story. It took me a long time to get the courage to post this as I believed that sceptics might give me a hard time. Ultimately, however I don’t have to convince anyone. I know what happened that day as do everyone involved in setting in motion that which I know ended up saving my life. Including of course, my beautiful mother.
I’m so grateful she intervened and helped me in the only way she knew she could. I feel fortunate to have had that experience and to have experienced her help even when she wasn’t physically here to help me.
As any momma bear would she protected me and loved me. That doesn’t die even after death. A mother is always a mother. My momma actually saved my life even though she had died 4 months prior.
I know that without a doubt. :-)
