It’s been a long time. I’m fast approaching the age my mum was when she passed and that scares the hell out of me. I vividly remember the day my father told my 6 year old brother and I that ‘Mummy has gone to heaven’. I remember not really understanding what that meant. We were a ‘church going’ family. When people die, they go to heaven. Or actually as my almost 4 year old bluntly told me recently, “When you die mummy, you go in a box so your mummy is in a box.” In many ways, she’s right. She is in a box. (Actually she was cremated but I’ll save that explanation to a four year old for another day… I mean year). But she has been ‘boxed’. I have a box with ‘mum’ things hidden away…photos, jewellery, pictures I drew her, plastic ‘tut’ I gave her but she lovingly kept. For years I accepted this. She was sick (cancer); she didn’t get better; she went to heaven. I put on a front. I pretended that this was ok – that I was ok. I was teased at primary school because I didn’t have a mum. Some friends weren’t allowed to come and play at my house because my dad was a man bringing up children on his own – god forbid. But we got on. We had to and I, on the whole, have happy memories of my childhood. As for heaven? I’m still not sure I believe that true. I like to think she is watching over us though, all these years later. I have to believe there is something after this life… I just have to.
Mother without a mother. 
I can only imagine. A friend is struggling with this and I have been researching and will direct her to your blog.