It's 25 years since MUM DIED but the SADNESS is still there'

Alia Waheed explores the grief and survivor's guilt she's experienced since her mother passed away at the age of 43

- Alia Waheed

Grief is unpredictable. There I was in May, getting ready for a Kylie concert - my eyeliner had gone on perfectly and my mind was racing. Would my hair go flat after an hour on the Tube? Would the kids convince my husband to get a takeaway? Then it hit me - at the age of 43, I was the same age as my mum had been when she passed away. She would never go to concerts like I was.

I don't know why it struck me at that moment, rather than on my 43rd birthday. Maybe it was because Mum and I used to watch Kylie as Charlene on Neighbours together. Maybe it was because life was going too right and I felt guilty?

Grief is a strange journey. It is like a frenemy that won't leave me alone - but I don't want it to either, because otherwise what else do I have? There is an empty space where Mum used to be and I need something to fill it. It's like a comfort blanket with thorns. Just when I think 'I've got this', it pricks me and reminds me that I haven't.