How could he have forgotten? He had been so caught up in all the supernatural craziness, that he had forgotten what tomorrows date was, 4th of April 2014, 7 years to the day, since his mum had died.
He will never forget that day though, after over 2 years of watching the cancer, the chemo and radiation treatments eat away at her, and on 4th of april 2007, it was time for her to go. He had been alone with her when it happened, his father had been called into work. It wasn't his father's fault, he was needed and important. He knew that he would have stayed if he had known what was going to happen that day.
He was 10 years old when he saw his mother die. In reality he knew he had been watching her slowly die for 2 years. He used to wish that there was some magic cure like in the stories his mum would read to him. Magic, werewolves and happily ever afters was all he used to believe in. But he learned the hard way that it wasn't true. No magic cure came, no werewolves to take away her pain and there was certainly no happily ever after. Nothing worked, the medicine and the doctors had only made it worse. She had pinky promised him that it would be okay, that she would get better. She had broken that promise.
He had been confused at first by the sudden beeping of her machines. He knew when he looked up. He couldn't breathe as the doctors and nurses flooded the room. He sat gasping in a chair in the corner of the room, beginning to hyperventilate. The world tilted, everything lost focus, his hands shook as they moved to cover his ears, so he didn't have to hear it, time of death.
He didn't remember when he closed his eyes or feeling the nice nurse named Melissa holding him, telling him to match his breathing to hers.
He only remembers waking up in a different room with his father sitting beside the bed he was in, hunched over and quietly sobbing into his hands. His dad was a superhero, a police officer, and yet he was crying. Oh, that's right, his mother was gone. The woman who read him tales about heroes and adventures, the woman who danced around with him in the kitchen to the Beatles, was gone, dead.
A doctor came in, he had explained slowly and carefully to them as if he was speaking to a toddler, what had happened to him. A panic attack they called it, they wanted to see a 'special' doctor. He hated doctors, they don't help anyone; they just make people worse.
His dad said nothing, and he did not respond to the silence, instead he reaches out and tugged his father by the hand until he climbed into the hospital bed with him. They just laid there in silence, his father curled protectively around him, and tried to stop the his hurt. No words were spoken nor needed as he clings to his father, and let the silent stream of tears turn into violent hiccuping sobs. Even with his father right there he felt alone. His little family of 3 had been reduced to 2.
For years after he felt a tightness in his chest whenever he thought about her. They didn't talk about it, his dad never even talked about her, unless he had been drinking.
Now 7 years later, he realised something, the tightness has gone as had the feeling of being alone. His family of 2 had grown since then, not in the traditional sense, but by choice. He had friends, people in his life that were like him, they had lost people or were alone in someway too. They were more like family and friends, they looked out for each other, helped each other like a family should. The family of 3 that was reduced to 2, had grown to a family of 12. He now had people he considered brothers and sisters. The special doctor had helped him, he learned to trust again, to stop feeling alone, to let people into the little family he had. He was happy now, even with her gone. because that is what his mum would have wanted, for him to be happy and let people in, to trust, to love, to live. Like she had.