What It’s Like to Lose Your Mum: My Story 10 Years Later

Ten years without you. A whole decade.

And this month, Dad is finally selling the house you made a home.

It hasn’t felt like home since the day you left. Without your laughter, your way-too-loud sneeze shrieks, or a true-crime documentary humming in the background, the house feels hollow, like a body missing its heartbeat. You were the glue that held us all together, and nothing has been the same since. I think what I miss most is our family dynamic, the version of us that existed only when you were here.

My mum made both of our dresses here (1997)

I dream about you often. In these dreams, suddenly you’re back. Not resurrected, just casually returning, as though death had been a long holiday. But you never quite fit into the life that’s grown in your absence. Dad has remarried someone so different from you. The house is nearly gone. Our family has reshaped itself into something foreign. None of it is inherently bad… it’s just not yours. It’s not the world you left behind.

And yet, if you could see me now, I know you’d barely recognise the woman I’ve become, in the best way possible.

About three weeks before you died, I told you I didn’t think I’d ever be a dancer. You looked at me and said, “Well, that’s your choice.” A simple sentence, but what you meant was: the only person who can stop you is you. You were right. Losing you taught me how fragile everything is, how unforgivingly short life can be. So I put my fears aside. I chose joy. I chose myself. I chose the stage.

Losing you has set me free. Free from the assumptions I had about what you expected of me, free from the habit of moulding myself into whatever would earn approval. All I ever wanted was to make you proud. To hear the words of affirmation I lived for. To feel your affection. And knowing how much pride you took whenever I performed is what still fills my heart every time I step under stage lights.

I picture you in those old theatre seats, turning to strangers and saying, “That’s my girl.”

And if the afterlife exists, I know you’re doing the same thing now, probably annoying whoever sits next to you, telling them that the sparkly dancer they’re watching is your daughter.

For so long, I made choices based on what I imagined you might approve of. And it’s strange to admit, but losing you might have been one of the kindest gifts you gave my future. It sounds harsh, but it’s true. I was set free. Hardship can break you or remake you, and I am stronger, undeniably stronger, because of you.

Today I’ve toured the world, dancing across Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. My everyday reality is something nineteen-year-old me would have never believed.

And I carry you with me everywhere.

I see you in my reflection: your eyes, your crooked smile, your curls. I hear you in my cynicism, my pedantic need to clarify facts, my love for craft and teaching.

Sewing was the first gift you ever gave me.

You enrolled me in fashion courses on school holidays and shared your own craft with me, skills I now get to showcase onstage every weekend. Whenever I sit at your sewing machine using your engraved scissors, it feels like you’re in the room, enchanting every thread woven into every seam. I wish you were still here making my costumes, but I’m proud to be using the tools you placed in my hands.

Teaching was the second gift.

Born in the 1950s, you had two career options: teacher or nurse. You chose teaching because you decided you could do better than the teachers you’d had, and you did. You had what you called “paid patience,” and it never ran out. You didn’t limit it to school hours either; at home, everything became a learning opportunity. You taught me how to teach, how to notice a struggling student, how to make people feel included and safe, how joy makes learning stick. I feel lucky every day that I learned from the best, and I know my students feel it too.

And sometimes, in the middle of all this - the shows, the touring, the sewing, the teaching - someone will say, “She’d be so proud of you.”

And it hits a nerve.

Because they didn’t know you.

Not really.

They didn’t know how hard those words were for you to express, or what you might actually think about my career choices. Let’s be honest: you’d probably have a fair amount of judgement and snide commentary about what a tart I can be, and I’d have plenty of fighting words right back, to remind you the apple didn’t fall far from the tart tree.

But what hurts isn’t the uncertainty. It’s people speaking on your behalf, filling in the silence with platitudes, when what I really want, what I ache for, is to hear what you would say. Your real thoughts. Your real voice. Even your real criticisms. I don’t want the imagined version of you. I want you.

Mum & Dad's wedding day.

You also taught me what love is supposed to look like. Yours and Dad’s relationship set the benchmark. So many people grow up never seeing real, gentle, everyday love, but you made it look easy. He adored you beyond reason. I don’t know many husbands who quit work for a whole year to care for their wife through terminal cancer, but mine did. Watching you two hold hands, kiss every morning, and simply love each other without hesitation will forever be one of my greatest memories. Because of you both, my standards never wavered.

Sometimes I get sad knowing you’ll never meet my partner, but I take comfort in knowing you’d absolutely love him. He’s another Irish one, smart in ways that complement mine, endlessly handy, and endlessly supportive (and I know for a fact he would laugh at all of your bad jokes). You always said your partner should be your number one fan, and mama, this man has taken that role extremely seriously. You would adore him.

I’ve always been surrounded by loss, with someone dying almost every year of my life. Your loss is the one that carved a permanent shape in me. A Tracey-sized hole that nothing else can fill. People love to say “time heals,” but it doesn’t. The pain stays the same; I just got better at carrying it. I learnt to joke about it, because if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry. And I learnt when not to joke about it, because grief makes people uncomfortable.

Grief is lonely. No one wants to talk about it. If we all spoke about it every time we felt it, we’d never shut up.

I feel it in everything: a mother and daughter walking by, a friend talking casually about their mum, a scene in a movie, a song we used to dance around the living room to. Grief is constant. Losing you is a feeling that never grants me a day off.

When you lost your mother, it felt like you disappeared for two years. I remember after she died, you told me about how you’d lie in bed and speak to her out loud, convinced she could hear you. You used to say you’d give anything for one more cup of tea with her. You knew exactly how she liked it.

The last photo I have of Mum & I (2015)

Well, I would give anything for another cup of tea with you.

Black tea, no sugar, a generous splash of cold water.

I’d give anything just to hold your frail little hand again.

But you don’t have to worry about me.

I’m strong because you made me strong.

I’m working hard to live without regrets, to reach for everything I want, to avoid the patterns that left you unfulfilled. I won’t let bitterness take root. I’ll accept the love around me. Because in the end, it’s all about love.

There aren’t enough words to express everything I’ve learned or everything I’ve lost. I’ve lived one-third of my life without you now, and learning these lessons alone has been the hardest part. I wish you were here to give me your offhand advice for every crossroads. Nothing can replace a mum.

I miss you every day.

And I carry you into every tomorrow.