16 years later,I still feel guitly :(

Hi everyone ,I have been going through allot lately and I just need someone to talk to. Here is my story

My parents got divorced when me and my sister was 3 years old and we got raised by our grand parents( my Dads Parents). My Dad got remarried and he had a son with his new wife. Then he decided to leave the Country to start a new life here in Canada.

After few years, he immigrated us to come here from Africa with my step mom, step brother and my real sister. Mom stayed back home but we kept in touch with her.

The communication we had with her was through my dad around that time . We would write a letter to her , give it to my Dad then he would mail it. We stayed in touch by writing back and forth with her.

I don`t know why but my sister and I got caught up with things here and we just stopped writing to her.

Then she send another letter asking why we stopped we stopped writing to her / why we were doing this to her and that she misses our love .My sister and I were going to respond but we didn't end up responding. I don't why me and my sister did this. I feel so terrible

sometime later, I recall my Dad telling us that my mom had send a letter telling him that she is not feeling well and that she wants our pictures to see how much we have grown since the last time we have seen her .

She also wrote the number for us to call where she was staying with my aunt back home. We asked my Dad to take the photos of us but he never followed through with it.

Mind you I was 14 and my sister 13 without jobs and we were still getting used to a new country. The system here is totally different from back home. We didn't know were to go about to get cameras for pictures. Everything we did and every communication we had was through my Dad who didn't seem to care that much at that time.

We never follow through with all that.Then after sometime I recall my step mom came to our room and ask if we have heard that our mom is sick. My sister and I just nodded and said No. She looked at us surprised and she was like "What you don't keep in touch her ?Well one day you going to hear that she is dead since you don't have time to talk to her while she is still alive"! these was her ecxact words

My step mom started nagging my Dad to go and buy a long distance card so we can talk to my mom from that point.

My Dad finally complied and went to buy a long distance card . The next morning my step mom dialed the number for us to connected where my mom was staying - She was going to pass the phone to us to talk to her once she connects to her .

Then she asked to speak to my mom but instead of passing the phone to us, she stayed on the phone silent and exchanged several words with whoever picked the phone then she said okay and hung up the phone.

From that moment I know that something wasn't right. She told us that she was informed that my mom had passed away few months ealier . It was too late

Apparantely,my mom got ill around the time we lost touch with her and she left the city where she was staying for work and went back to her Moms village because she got seriously ill . She died there few months later - which were she got buried.

I felt numb but I didn't cry or fell apart .I just tried going on with my life.I don't if I was just in denial. My Dad admitted that my mom had sent a letter few moths prior telling him that she is not feeling well . She was afraid that she is wasn't going to make it. She also told my Dad to take care of us if she doesn't make it

Years later my moms brother ,my uncle found me and my sister on Face book and we reconnected. I hadn't seen him since I was 5 back home.

We caught up and I asked him what had really happened with our mom and how she died. He told us that our mom tried desperately to get hold of us on her last days.

She kept pushing for my uncle to find us because she really wanted to talk to us since she knew she was dying. At some point he googled my Dads name trying to locate us to no avail because mom got desperate and frantic to get hold us.

From what my uncle said, she knew that she was dying because she kept saying things like ,"I am going to die and I will never see my kids again"

She kept telling uncle to find us over and over because she really wanted to talk to us before she died on her last days I am actually tearing up typing this. Her uncle from her Dad side came looking for us at my Grand parents house when she mom had few days to live .He didn't know that we had left the country

To this day, we don't know what killed her. My other Uncle told us that she just got sick with flu like symptoms and then boom she was gone in 2 weeks. However, my aunt told us that she had cancer in her uterus.

My Grandmother, her mom who is still alive today told me that someone had cancer in her colon and she was also poisoned where she was staying .We don't know for sure what really killed her.

She was only 35 when she passed away .She had me and my sister when she was a teenager which explains why she was still a young mom when we were teenagers by the time she passed away.

Now 16 years later, I now reliazed that I haven't properly grieved her death expect few occasions when I would burst into tears when I think about her or come accross pictures of her that mu uncle send us

Lately, I have been thinking about her allot and wishing if she was still alive so I could talk to her ,now that we have access to a computer ,phone and discovered face book, skype etc unlike back then when we were younger living with my Dad and everything was through him / we didn't have access to these devices

I have been bursting into tears more frequently especially when I am alone at home.I also feel guilty because I never got to say good bye when she passed away .All I keep saying is "I'm sorry mom" but she can no longer hear me

Also how we stopped communicating with her until it was too late. I just feel so bad thinking what she must have went through during her last days when she couldn't get hold if us ./knowing that she was dying and us being continents away.

She must have thought we stopped caring about her when we stopped writing to her

I keep getting memories on how she lived with us when she separated from my Dad but then my Dad never sent her enough money to help her. She couldn't afford to raise us so she sent us back to him but he sent us back to our grand parents .

I keep thinking about

-How she took us back for a holiday right after to stay with her because she missed us.

-How she used to visit us every chance she got at our grand parents

-How she spoke to me when I got my period

-How she used to buy us gifts on holidays

-How she told us not to forget about her right before we left the country

-How she sent me a cassette of my favourite singer back home when I asked her to

I keep thinking about the happy and sad moments we shared with her when I was little girl. I can still feel her love for us even though she is no longer with us. Her legacy of love will always be with us

I want to tell her that I love her and I am sorry for not making an effort to stay in touch with her - that we didn't mean to hurt her but I cant.My sister and I are thinking to fly back home to see her grave and talk to her as if she is still alive.

Would that give us closure and make us feel better? How can I say sorry to her when she is no longer alive to hear me?

This is a really heartbreaking story. No one, especially children, ever really think about the fact that time and life can disappear, that they can lose someone. To that end you need to forgive yourselves, as kids neither of you had any capacity to understand that your mom might not be there one day. This is where grief counseling and maybe even seeing if your therapist would do a closure ceremony could help.

The idea of going to her grave is a lovey one, and yes you and your sister should do it. I think that would be of comfort. Also have you tried to track down her family and reconnect with them? If not maybe that could help too? Setting aside all that maybe a way to ease your heart would be to volunteer at nursing homes or shelters or in a Big Sister Program where people are sometimes alone and need visitors or people to remember them? It's probably what I would do.

You can't change the past, but you can reshape the future and to that end I think you and your sister should move forward to see how you can go about doing that.

I agree that you should go and visit her grave and reconnect with your family in Africa.

Maybe you can put together a book of photos of her, the family and your relatives while you are there. Maybe you can donate to a worthwhile women's health collective, or do something in her memory that will assist women who've been similarly ill. Maybe you can also write her letters now, telling her how you feel and put together a photo album of your own life that you can leave at her grave or with your aunties.

I really feel for you. It is very hard to live with such deep regret - particularly since you were so young, so caught up in your own lives and with no understanding of the repercussions of your actions.

Thank you guys for your response and yes I have pretty much reconnected with most of moms family back home when we reconnected with my uncle (my moms brother) through Face book.

My grandmother, her mom is still alive today and I talk to her on Skype whenever she visits my uncle. As for everyone else, i keep in touch with them through Face Book.