My mother died two days after Mother’s Day in 2023. She had been preparing me for her death for years, but I wasn’t prepared for all the bullshit that came after. My mom was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, a rare cancer also known as bile duct cancer, less than a week before she passed. She also had a mass in her kidneys that the doctors suspected was cancer, but they focused on the bile duct cancer because it was causing the most catastrophic issues. She lost mobility in her legs about three weeks after I gave birth to her first and only grandchild in December of 2019. She spent the last part of her life confined to a hospital bed in the house for almost four years. My mom was tired. She fought a long, painful battle to stay alive. She used to tell me she just wanted to live long enough to see her granddaughter run down the hallway—right where her hospital bed faced. And she did. Mother’s Day was May 14th. She passed away on May 16th. My birthday is May 31st, and my college...