I Miss My Mum

• Tiarne O'connor, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2016

Ding Dong! The doorbell rang. I ran downstairs with excitement, just to see my new-born baby brother, Zac. I opened the door and there he was, cradled in my mum’s arms. I thought that this was one of the happiest moments of my life but after a few days that happiness faded away.

My mum hadn’t been feeling well so she went to a doctor. When she came back home, I could see she’d been crying. “Are you okay?” I asked. She didn’t answer back, she didn’t even look at me.

I don’t know what's wrong but I have to find out. Mum went upstairs with heavy footsteps, dad following after her. They stayed up there for a while. They came back down later and mum said she was going for a walk. Dad told us that he has some bad news so Olivia, Mia, Jake and Matt, my brothers and sisters, all came into the lounge room with Dad and I.

“As much as I hate to admit this, your mother has cancer…” Dad said sadly. I was so sad and I could tell everyone else was by the look on their faces. He sighed and said, “your mother didn’t go for a walk, she went to the hospital…”

What did Mum do to deserve this? Why did this have to happen to her? Out of all the people in the world, why her? I had so many questions but I didn’t want the answers, I didn’t want to know, not yet anyway.

As the days went on, she started getting weaker. She had chemo therapy but it doesn’t seem to make the cancer any better, I think it’s worse.

My mum started getting really bad pains so she went to the hospital to make sure that everything was okay. My brothers, my sisters, my dad and I all sat in the room with mum. Then all of a sudden, a loud machine started beeping and lots of doctors ran into the room.

What was happening? What were the doctors doing? I was so confused. My dad told us that they were doing surgery. It took a while and I didn’t know why. Why were they taking so long?

Eventually, a doctor came out and he said “I’m so sorry, she didn’t make it, you can all say your goodbyes now…” But I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to look at her dead body. When we got home, I went straight up to my room and cried in the corner of the room.

A year later, everyone was still sad so Dad went out, trying to drink his sadness away. He came back home with a girl, her name was Bridget. I put on a fake smile when Dad introduced her. I didn’t like her.

Another year passed and I was at their wedding. I was one of the flower girls at the ceremony. I still didn’t like her, I don’t know why, I guess I just miss my mum.