I miss my mom.

9 years ago this week I lost my mom to breast cancer. She was diagnosed about 2 years prior to her death and she had chemo and radiation to get rid of the disease that would later turn my mom into someone unknown to me. The cancer spread from her breast to her lung to her bones and then to her brain. She was a woman destined to be surrounded by grandchildren. Sadly she only really got to know three of them before she died.
My mom and I never got along as i grew up. I guess I didnt fit the dream of what a daughter was going to be. I argued constantly. I rebelled against her religion and blamed her for my dad leaving. I spent so many years mad at her that I regret losing that time with her.
I can remember at the end when the cancer was so advanced that between the cancer in her brain and the medications she was on that she would scream awful things at me or tell the nurses terrible things. I wonder did she really believe some of them?
After her death we had a memorial service in Va where we are from and the number of people who turned out to share their memories with us was so therapeutic. I guess I never knew how many lives she touched. We scattered her ashes on April Fools' Day in the ocean within sight of a lighthouse which she loved.