The Day I Grew Up: Grief at Age Sixteen

June 26th, 1993. Mazey Day in Penzance. The day my mum died. The day childhood ended—not with a slow fade, but with a crash of my world falling apart around me.

I’ve written about this before, but today I want to revisit it with new eyes. Not just to remember, but to reflect on what grief taught me about adulthood, resilience, and the quiet ways loss shapes a life.

This week, I’m embarking on a new journey with the charity Motherless Mothers. We’re gathering at the Houses of Parliament to share experiences and take action—supporting all mothers who have lost their own. It will be emotional, difficult, and powerful.

Memories of the day my mum died

On June 26^th, 1993, I was 16. I had a great life for a teenager & lived with my parents in Penzance, Cornwall.  I was a gift to my mum and dad in their 40s, a surprise baby conceived in the hottest summer of 1976. There was a gap of 18 and 21 years between my older brother and sister.

My life was all about the beach every weekend with my friends and going out, teenage drinking at the Admiral Benbow every Saturday night. I had a job working in Oliver’s, the high street shoe shop, mainly to pay for the Saturday night drinks and United Colour of Benetton Jumpers. My GCSE exams had just finished the week before, and I felt like I had done well. I had a long summer ahead of me with no school or much to focus on. A-levels were next in September.

Waking up early on that morning of Saturday 26^th June, my life would change forever. I had the attic bedroom, the best bedroom for having friends over for make-up/prinks preparation for going out on the town. It had the most perfect view over Penzance of St Michael’s Mount and Mounts Bay.

My sister was shaking me to wake me up; this was already strange, as my sister lived in a different house. Then it struck me we had been at the hospital the night before, as my mum had fallen ill. She has been rushed to Penzance hospital by ambulance, and we all followed and were eventually let in to see her in intensive care. She was hooked up to all the life-saving machines, and we were told she had had a heart attack. She was alive, I spoke to her, and she nodded her head when I said I would see her tomorrow.

Tomorrow never came

My sister was waking me up to tell me that Mum had had another heart attack in the night and had died. It is strange to reflect back now on 32 years ago and think of the feelings I felt that day. To be honest, I remember very little. I remember my sister, 21 years older than me, climbing into my bed and cuddling me for what felt like hours. It wasn’t fair to expect an older sister to tell her 16-year-old child sister that their mum had just died.

That was the day I became an adult

I don’t remember my dad at all that day.  Maybe he just retreated into his normal quiet, uncommunicative, unemotional mode in his shock? I do remember my sister going into organisation mode all day, trying to sort everybody and everything out. I had to get out of the house, so I got dressed and went to work in the shoe shop.

It was Mazey day that day, a Saturday, I will forever hate that annual Penzance event. The high street was covered in palm tree leaves and decorations. I walked into the shop, went straight to my manager, lovely Dee, and told her that my mum had died, but I wanted to work. She sat me down, gave me a long hug and a cup of tea and sent me home again.

My friends

I called my best friends, Sophie and Becky, to tell them. I remember saying to them, “Is your mum with you?”. Ironic that I asked them that, just before telling them my mum had died. I went through the script, and there were many tears. It’s such an alien conversation to have at age 16 (or any age) that your mum has just died, a complete surprise and shock to the system. Mums don’t die when you are 16, before boyfriends, GCSE results, A-levels, university, first job, more boyfriends, marriage, children, divorce.

My friends did the best thing they could, and we decided to stick to our original plans of Saturday night drinking at the pub to take my mind off it. It didn’t, of course, and I was an emotional mess by 11 pm after a few ciders. It was the best thing my best mates could have done to bring some normality into my day. I remember feeling relieved that I could walk into a pub, and no one knew what had happened that day. I didn’t have to explain yet to anyone that my mum had died.

The Aftermath

That day and the days that followed were again memories I have chosen to block out. I know we had problems finding my older brother and had to get Interpol to find him. He was on a boat somewhere in the Med, that’s all we knew. He was eventually located, and he flew back to London. On day three, I drove up to Heathrow with my sister and her boyfriend to collect him. My dad was angry. Angry because his wife of 38 years had just died and took out that anger on my brother for the trouble we had in trying to locate him.

My school leavers’ prom was in the week following my mum’s death. My sister again rallied to make me a dress, a rough silk, emerald green, off-the-shoulder prom dress. She made it in one day from a pattern. I had a boyfriend for a few months before mum’s death, but we had split up a few weeks before. But he took me to the prom, he arrived at my house in his suit and tie from Burtons.

We had photos taken in front of the beautiful red dahlias in the garden. He held my hand as we walked around the ballroom of the Queens Hotel. Everyone knew by then that my mum had died, so there were a lot of hugs, and ‘I am so sorry about your mum’. We danced to the 1993 music and slow danced to Boys to Men. I cried. We got back together that night. I needed someone to have contact with, someone to hug and hold my hand. I will forever be thankful to him for being there.

Saying goodbye

The depths of despair between death and the funeral dragged on for a few days. I think we had the funeral maybe two weeks later in July. It was a big Wimbledon day, and I remember Andre Agassi playing. And I remember it being very hot. I wore my only black dress; we got in the funeral car for the drive to St. Just church for the funeral, the village where my mum grew up.

We sat at the front of the church. I remember looking around and seeing all the faces, shocked that someone so caring, warm, and friendly could have passed at the young age of 58. I remember seeing my best friends at the back with their mums and feeling so glad they were there for a cuddle at the end. I sat next to my sister and dad, and my sister held my hand throughout.

We sang Morning Has Broken, I tried to sing. The hugs at the end of service from Sophie, Becky, Gill and Sue, their mums meant the world. We drove to the crematorium in Truro (a long drive from St. Just of 1 hour). All I remember from that journey to Truro and back was my dad being angry and telling me that I was never allowed to smoke. I had already started smoking with my friends. The wake was at our house in Penzance. I think I just retreated to my bedroom and cried.

Reflections of Grief

It’s a tough read, raw emotions, and it always makes me cry to re-read, which takes me back to those few weeks. It’s also comforting to remember what my sister and best friends did for me.  

My dad was very much in the anger stage of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, finding meaning) in those early stages. I stayed in denial for a long time. Tragically, my dad struggled with the death of my mum; he wasn’t made to look after himself, a man who gave his life to the military, marines, army then MOD. He died just three years after my mum at the age of 63. Both mum and dad died of heart attacks.

The stages of grief, to me, are more of a cycle. And still many years on from mum and dad dying, I find myself going through denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I have done a lot in the finding meaning stage. I have worked with Grief Encounter and raised a lot of money for the charity that looks after grieving children. And now I embark on my journey with Motherless Mothers.

Losing my parents at 16 and 19 has shaped me as a human. I care deeply about others, and have strong empathy, so much so that people often feel comfortable sharing their life stories with me, the trauma and the good times. This can be challenging for me as I absorb some of their feelings, and it can affect my physical and mental health. I need to work on a coping strategy for this, which doesn’t involve running away.

If someone close to you has died, I hear you, I see you. I know what you are going through.