It was a Sunday and it had been raining hard that day. It was the most rain we had seen all year. I was excited because of the rain, as any Californian would since it's different from the year-round clear and sunny skies we're accustomed to. I was in community college, transferring to Cal State Fullerton that following fall semester so I was trying to make my last semester there count. I had plenty of film homework to do that day, which at the time was just watch a bunch of movies, write synopses and provide in depth analysis of mise en scene. I also was starting a mid-semester class the next day and I was trying to prepare for that, too. 

I watched one of Martin Scorsese's first films, Mean Streets. While I did enjoy it, it was hardly his best work. However there was plenty to pick apart and analyze, which made my job easier. Earlier in the day, my Brother and I walked to the grocery store in the rain. My hair was soaked, my clothing was drenched and all I wanted to do was take a shower and get into warm, comfortable clothing where I could lounge around and be lazy for the remainder of my evening.

I had just gotten out of the shower when I heard a knock on my door. At the time, I was still living with my Dad, Step-Mom, Brother and other step-siblings where the grand total of people living in one house was seven. Needless to say, there was little to no privacy. Also, there was always a line to the bathroom. When I answered the door, it was my Step-Mom. She looked pale and serious, as if she had witnessed a terrorist attack in her own backyard. She calmly asked me to follow her to her and my Dad's bedroom. For a minute, I thought it had to do with my Dad's party. His birthday was the following week and she had been planning for weeks to have a big blow out. She invited all of his brothers and sister from Texas to come out and celebrate since he very rarely gets to see him. If anything, I thought she needed me to help her out with something or a random emergency had come up with the planning. I wish that had been the case.

When I enter the room, I sit on her and my Dad's bed. Soon my Brother comes into the room with my Dad. My Dad shuts the door. I take a look at his face--it's swollen. You can see his cheeks were glistening from what appeared to be tears. His eyes were bloodshot red. My Dad is a man who very rarely shows emotion. He is not a hugger, he doesn't say "I love you" and he most certainly doesn't cry. The last time I had seen him cry was when my parents announced they were getting a divorce eleven years prior. Something was inherently wrong.

In a shaky voice, all he states is "They found your mother..." 

It was a phrase I hoped not to hear. It was a phrase I had been frightened to hear. It was news I never hoped to receive. It was a reality I hoped would never come to fruition.

I immediately belted out a noise. I couldn't compare to any other noise. It was a noise I had never heard come out of me or any other human being before. It was like the howl of a wounded animal after being run over by a semi truck. It was the sound a child makes when they lose their mother.

I cried uncontrollably. My Step-Mom was in tears, while my Dad was holding back tears. My Brother is not one to cry, and he didn't but he was in shock. I had never seen him in such a state. At the time, my Brother had gone six months without speaking to my Mother. The night previous I had hung up on her after a heated argument. My Dad was barely keeping his friendship with my Mother alive. 

My Mother was battling her issues with addiction. She had no job, no source of income and was living in hotel rooms my Grandfather had put her in. She had bags of her belongings and a car and that was it. She was homeless junkie. It was difficult trying to reason with her during that time frame. She was either high or jonsing for another fix. Logic is was not enough. Love was not enough. 

My Dad told us that she was found in the hotel room she was staying at by a maid. They called my Grandmother and my Grandmother called my Dad and broke the news to him. She was discovered at 3 in the afternoon. I was in the middle of watching Mean Streets when they found her body.

Immediately all this useless shit came into my brain:

How was I going to complete my FAFSA for the following year?

What's going to happen with her Workman's Comp settlement?

Stuff that wasn't pertinent to the news at hand was suddenly an issue. There was talk of me and my Brother being the next of kin and having to fill out paperwork to release her, make arrangements and identify her body.

Her body.

She was no longer a person who used to kiss me goodnight and tell me "I love you" every time she left the room. She was no longer a woman I would come crying to every time I was hurt or angry. She was no longer a human being I could hug just for the sake of hugging. She was no longer a mother, my mother, but rather a corpse that needed to be dealt and taken care of. 

For some reason I was still hell bent on going to class. It was my first day for my Asian American studies class. You can't miss the first day. My Dad told me I had to because there were too many things to take care of the next day. "I am only a child" is a phrase that kept popping into my head. I'm not old enough to deal with this. This shouldn't be happening yet. I thought, "Is your mother randomly dying on a Sunday a good excuse to miss your first day of class?" I agreed to take care of the things that needed to be done and miss school for this one day.

At that point, everyone wanted to be alone. My brother went back to his room and watched a Gene Kelley musical. I went back to my room and started calling people.

The first person I called was my friend, Shawn. He was also my first love and I had known him for 8 years at that point. He never formally met my mother since he has always lived in Texas but the few times he called me in high school my mother answered the phone and she would have brief conversations with him. He thought she was a cool, friendly mom.

I cried, and I cried hard. He never heard me in that emotional state before. Sure, I teared up on the phone when he broke my heart but he never heard me bawl like my life had ended. He did his best to comfort me from thousands of miles away. He was in a state of shock himself. I still hold that conversation dear to my heart and I could never thank him enough for being there for me during the worst night of my life. He will forever be bound to me in that regard.

From there on I called my good friends Mia and AC, who I have been friends with since high school. They knew my Mom well and witnessed first hand the effect my Mother's addiction had on me. AC took me in one night when I got into a huge fight with my drunken Mom and we watched movies and looked at weird videos on YouTube. She did her best to take my mind off of the events that occurred earlier in the evening. I could never repay her for her and her family's kindness. 

Mia lived down the street from me and my Mom would occasionally call out for her whenever she felt like skipping first period. She would walk to my house and we would talk until we had to get to second period. It was so much simpler during that time.

One of my Mother's exes, whom she still stayed in contact with after they broke up, needed to be called. He still cared for her deeply and through all of my Mother's shenanigans he still loved her and kept in contact. I knew it was too late to do it then, so I decided to wait till the next day to break the news to him. And it had to be me to break it. I knew him since my Mother first dated him. The news coming from anyone else would be insulting. Besides there was no need for him to lose sleep--enough people were losing it already.

After making a barrage of phone calls, I escaped my room and went to my Brother to see if he wanted something to eat. I wasn't hungry in the slightest but we still needed to eat. He looked sullen but offered to tag along with me.

While I was waiting for him to get ready, I went out to the living room where my Dad was watching the 11 o'clock news in the dark. It didn't seem like he was paying attention to the television, but rather staring aimlessly as a way to have some white noise in the background to distract him from his thoughts about Mom. I knew this would be the hardest on him. He's the one who knew her the best and the longest. While their marriage never worked out, they had a strong bond. My Mom was my Dad's best friend and he just lost her. He told me that whatever I was feeling was okay and we would get through this together. My Brother emerged during our heart to heart. He told us to be careful and stay warm since it was chilly. He proceeded to go his room and try to fall asleep.

My Brother and I went to the only restaurant still open that late, a Mexican hole-in-the-wall that was open till one in the morning and drunks would frequent regularly. We decided to walk there to clear our minds. We talked about Mom, her family and how this would affect Dad's birthday. The conversation bounced around and we reminisced about her, all the funny stories that involved her. In our whole entire lives we never dealt with death before and the first time we ever had to deal with it was the death of our mother. For two kids who were intelligent, had college educations and read books about dying and watched films that questioned mortality, this was the first time we both felt ignorant in the grieving of someone we loved.

My Brother wanted to be alone and watch something happy, anything to take his mind off our Mother. I still had homework to do so I opted to watch Jules et Jim. I ate about a quarter of my burrito. It was bland and I had no desire to finish it. Towards the end of the film two of the characters, Jim and Catherine, die in a car crash caused by Catherine. Jules is left to mourn his friends. He ends up cremating them. I was reminded of my Mother and her wishes to be cremated, have her ashes put in purple balloons and let loose over the sea. I lost it and wept again.

It was four in the morning and I had to go bed. My body was exhausted but my brain wouldn't shut off. I got under the covers, turned off the light and turned on my fan. I laid there, trying to make myself fall asleep as I heard the rain tapping outside my window.