I Didn’t Know My Mom Was Dying. Then She Was Gone.

The pink notebook my mother kept when she was sick contains 18 entries, most of them shorter than a haiku. The pages list medications and surgeries, the names of family members who sent money, and which body parts hurt and how badly. One entry, from October 1995, reads: “Neck (severe pain) Coming out of the mall to cold air.” I was 5 that day; my sister was 3. We were leaving the mall after taking a family portrait when my parents started panicking—about exactly what, I didn’t know. I just remember my dad rushing my mom home because of what I later learned was an excruciating neck spasm. Hours later, an ambulance took her to the hospital for the last time. Four months later, she was gone.

One strange thing about losing a parent so young is that you might forget which details you learned about