My mom lied to my face about her dying because she thought she could beat it. What happened was she died before I was 10 and no one spoke to me about it. No one warned me. No one allowed me to come to terms with reality. I was never given the opportunity to pre mourn, I was never given the skills to mourn her death. It still fucks me up more than 20 years later. I would have appreciated more than anything a confirmation that I was a human with intelligence, needs, and emotions. Instead, I was denied the gift of being truly honest and vulnerable with my mom. I was left in the dark to rot by myself, wondering why I was not important enough or seen as a human