If a stranger were to ask me to describe myself, I would probably mention in the first couple of sentences that my mother died when I was a teenager. I would say this not in any misguided attempt at sympathy (because there have been a lot of years between that time and now) but because, more than anything else in my life, my mother’s dying shaped who I am today, in both good and bad ways.

I won’t go on and on about the mother-child bond. Poets and psychologists have covered that pretty thoroughly. But I will say that my connection to my mother was primal and unconscious and having that pulled away early forced me to develop an independence I wasn’t ready for and that part of me still doesn’t think I’m “qualified for. ”

When I was little and fell down and got hurt, hers was the first face that came to my mind; she was the one I cried for. I can tell you from experience that that instinct never goes away, especially when the hurts get bigger and more profound.

My husband and my dad were there to ease some of my fears when my son was born. But in some deep recess of my brain and my heart, I needed my mom. Some part of me made me think that only she could make the pain go away. That, of course, isn’t true. (Although I do believe that she could have gotten the darned obstetrician to the hospital earlier even if she had to drag him there by his ears.)

There are other lifelong repercussions of my mom dying early. Because she died suddenly without warning, I am always harboring the fear that someone else I love will go that way, before I’ve had a chance to say goodbye. I try not to walk away from a loved one after having harsh words because my biggest fear is that those will be the last words I speak to that person. Because of that, I tend to cave early on arguments.

In raising my own child, I may have been lax on discipline. They say you want for your own kids what you didn’t have. Perhaps this is because I want my son to have the gift of unconditional love from another human being. I want my son to have the security of taking me for granted even when he’s old and off with his own family.

But if I am honest, I’ll have to admit that losing my mom made me, in some ways, a better person. Not having her to turn to forced me to face obstacles by myself that I normally wouldn’t have. The fact of her loss alone—happening at a time when I didn’t have the perspective that years give you—made me realize that I could handle just about anything the world threw at me. If I could pick myself up after that, then there wasn’t much else that could hold me down.

In some ways, my mom has never left me. In times of stress, I’ll hear her voice in my head: “Are you going to put up with that?” or “Go for it. I’ll be right here for you.” And if I don’t have her to hold, that’s the next best thing.