When I was a young boy - a very young boy - my mother became very ill. And while I don't remember much at the time, I do feel like there was never that true motherly affection that young children and infants should probably receive at that point in their life. And I do not remember much of my mother at all, now that I come to think about it.

Soon after my birth, my mother had been diagnosed with cancer. They was not sure what it was exactly that caused it but... it was serious. Over the last few years, developments in medicine have flourished rather unpredictably, as well as the seemingly planet-focused research into such a special, and equally deadly disease. But this was twenty one years ago that this had happened. And although she was on her short maternity leave, and although she had had regular check-ups, it was much too late when they noticed.

And it was a case of fight or die.

Perhaps... had I been older I could better understand, better remember what it was exactly. But I was but an infant. I knew only how to breath, and the only control I had was... my mood. I could not possibly remember but, I do now live with the fact that during the first few months of my life, my mother - my biologist mother, who could not have been any more suited for the duties of being a mother - had been on the brink of death while I was only recently released into the realm of... life.

Of all the things to happen to me. Of everything to happen in my life. This is the only instance where my mind just draws a blank. But it's not just to do with my limited recollection of the events. Times in my life where I have felt extraordinarily down or, dare I say, depressed, my mind will always circle back to this strange and unfortunately defining moment in my life. My desperate mind, looking for strings to pluck and dispense excuses over my failures and troubles, would always struggle to find a true one, and would always, always blame cancer, or my mother, or whatever, that she was not in my life in those early stages. That my life had never developed properly since then. Especially during my youthful teenage years of recent had I thought about this more and more, with my unprepared life faces unadulterated stress and anxiety.

I was convinced: I wasn't an infant. I was an orphan.

I was as good as a bastard left in an abandoned house for all I cared, for all I knew, for all I was told.

I think there may have been a stage in my life where I distinguished myself with no mother, just a woman who was under the façade of being my mother. Like an adoptive mother - caring, loving, and by God you want to love her, but she was not my real mother. Or at least not to my stubborn childhood mind as, of course, she was my real mother.

But... apparently as if 'by magic', she recovered. She had fought it. She had beaten it, but the struggle came at the cost of losing my early years as a child. They had assumed and, in the end they knew, that I would never possibly remember what had happened.

I look back on it now, and all I can think of is... how I wish. I wish I could remember it. Remember it all. Every last bit of it. Or at least I wish I had hyperthymesia. That would be rather useful as a whole...

When I was down in my life, when I felt like the world was crashing down, I would think of that instance. It was an excuse to me, a way to avoid responsibility, and how it could not possibly be my fault. But then I would remember how she had beaten it regardless. How a disease so infamous it's sensitive even saying its name, was overcome by my one, and my only mother. If she can make it through such a difficult phase of her life well... I suppose so can I.

I suppose that I have my mother's willpower... or at least I hope I do. Having that would be - even if only a little - better than having hyperthymesia.