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Pain is a very misunderstood thing. Many people believe they know the meaning of pain or have an idea of what the word signifies. To me, as a teenager, a break-up or an argument with too many adolescent hormones involved was painful. Childbirth was painful. Slamming fingers into a car door is painful. Watching my daughter struggle with the ideas of pre-teen life seemed painful. Yet, a single event in my life within the past month has taught me just exactly what pain is.

    As of the time I write this, 24 days ago my mom—my beautiful, young, accomplished, passionate mom—passed away. Robin Ongaro died while on vacation in Greece, in a tragic, unexpected accident, and within that moment of her passing, life as I knew it ceased to exist. This is pain. This is pain that has no boundaries or any end in sight. This is pain beyond reason or any imaginable scenario I could come up with. I lost my mom. I’ve lost everything.

    I have not a lot of anything in me, yet I feel compelled to write a little bit about her. My brain is fighting me even as I try to write this because it’s still so unreal, and therefore unreal to be writing about her death. My mom was my first love. I was enchanted with her throughout my entire life. Everything she did, she did with meaning and grace. She always accepted me, no matter what I was doing or going through. She encouraged me in any and all paths I chose. When I gave birth to my daughter as a teenager, I remember staring into my mom’s blue eyes as she encouraged me to push, to breathe. As I have grown from a child into an adult, my mom took on so many roles in my life. She was my greatest friend. Whether we talked for hours on end in person or on the phone, or had a busy day where only a few texts or emails were exchanged, every day, even if she was on the other side of the world (as vacationing was a loved hobby of hers), she connected with me. Always the same question: “Everything the same?” We knew that if the other one answered yes then at the very least we were all ok, and we would catch each other up on all the other details tomorrow. My mom was my mentor, my adviser, my champion, my hero. We read all the same books, shared the same taste in people and most opinions, and we were in love with each other, simply, and so raw. She was my soul mate.

    I’m left with a hole in my heart and in my life that cannot be filled. The only person who could fill this hole was irreplaceable. World’s greatest mom, friend, and, I cannot leave out, world’s greatest nana. She took on my kids with me as a partner, as a second mother. They, too, now have learned the meaning of pain, at ages when it shouldn’t yet be a part of their vocabulary. My mom was a center point in the life of my family, and right now, the firecracker has blown up, and I feel as though we are all the burning ashes in her wake. My words are short this time, as it takes all I have in me just to keep on breathing. Mom, I love you, I love you without measure. I will NEVER not need you or not wish you were here. I will never forget you. I will think about you every moment of every day. And though I know for my kids I will have to survive this, I will never again feel joy without a slice of pain, as I can’t share the joy with you. I will never be the same without my other half. Mom... Mom. I know what pain is now.

The picture below is my mom. She took a Reader Weekly with her on this vacation because she wanted to be the “Reader reader” in another country and submit the photo when she got back. This was taken a few days before she died, and as my greatest fan, she had the page opened to me.