Madeleine Davies remembers the help she received after she lost her mother at the age of 12

Mothers who die young, leaving behind small children, are quite common in literature. I grew up reading Anne of Green Gables and What Katy Did. Disney princesses are also quite frequently motherless. Even Nemo is brought up by his dad.

When it happens in real life, you feel extremely unusual, an object of sympathy, but also of curiosity. I can remember cards coming through the mailbox from neighbours who had never spoken to us and being eyed with what felt like slight fascination at school.

Our family attended Adeyfield Free Church in Hemel Hempstead, and had spent two years praying for healing, pinning up hopeful Bible verses around the house, and trusting that God was with us and able to do anything. My mum visited a Christian healer – a wonderfully kind man who made a video of us all, which we still have. Healing ministries can be regarded suspiciously, but I wanted people to try, at least.

After my mum died, our thoughts immediately turned to heaven. I remember picking up A Grief Observed by CS Lewis from our bookshelves and reading: “Where is she now? That is, in what place is she at the present time?” It was what I was wondering. It was highly surreal that one moment my mum was here, on earth, in my parents’ bedroom, and the next she wasn’t. I believed firmly in heaven (I still do) but couldn’t get my head around it. It was a very strange time….

Madeleine Davies is a reporter for the Church Times

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This is an extract from the March 2015 edition of Reform.

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