Thirteen, With No Goodbye

*Thirteen, With No Goodbye* is a raw and unflinching exploration of loss, resilience, and the haunting echoes of grief that stretch across a lifetime. At just 10 years old, I stood in the shadow of a devastating truth: my mother had breast cancer. In the pages of this book, I open the doors to my deepest memories, revealing the trauma of that moment and the years that followed.

Through vivid recollections, I take you through the moments I never wanted to remember, the pain I tried to bury, and the confusion of losing my mother at the tender age of 13, in 7th grade, when life felt as though it was just beginning to unfold. Her battle with cancer was not just hers; it became mine, and the lives of my seven sisters who were left behind to pick up the shattered pieces of a family we didn't know how to rebuild.

This is not just the story of my mother's illness or her death. It is the story of how I learned to carry a grief that never truly left me, how I struggled to find my place in a world that felt colder, emptier, and more uncertain without her. Even at 29 years old, the weight of that trauma remains-woven into the fabric of my life in ways I never imagined. The grief still lingers, and the scars still ache.

In *Thirteen, With No Goodbye*, I delve deep into the psychological and emotional aftermath of growing up with the specter of loss. I recount how my mother's death changed me forever, how it reshaped my understanding of love, family, and identity. This is a journey of healing and remembering-of facing the wounds that remain open and tender, even all these years later.

Through these pages, I hope to connect with others who have experienced similar pain, to remind them that they are not alone in the struggle to move forward while still carrying the weight of what was lost. My mother may be gone, but her memory lives on in every word, every tear, every part of me that still carries her love-and in that, there is hope.