I just want to share my story in case it's useful to others going through the same thing. 

My beautiful mum passed away one month ago today, after battling extensive small cell lung cancer for 9 months. She had a seizure towards the end of January and from there she showed an accelerated decline and we were told to prepare for what we had known was the inevitable. The day before she passed away I was with her in the hospital (where she had been for 5 months undergoing treatment, trying to kick cancer's butt like a trooper!), and I told her all the things I wanted her to know, about how sorry I was for ever getting frustrated with her or for the moments where I didn't fully understand the severity or enormity of her illness. Right afterwards her SpO2 levels plummeted, and by 4 in the morning the next day I held her hand and watched her take her last breath. 

I spent the final 4 months looking after her, and now that she's gone I am struggling to feel like I have any purpose in life. But I do know that although I will be forever heartbroken at losing my mum in my late 20s, that feeling will pass, I'll find another job and get my career back on track, and I will find purpose again. I am just incredibly sad that she won't be there for all of the milestones and beautiful moments to come, and so sorry she got cancer and didn't get another chance. It's really, really crap and ultimately so unfair. The only thing I can take any comfort in is knowing that she is finally at peace, after months of being desperately unwell, bed ridden, unable to even sit herself up... it wasn't a life she deserved and the pain she was in was visible and felt by us all. 

Wishing anyone who has lost a loved one to this beast of a disease all of the love and happiness in the world. My mum is the centre of me and I believe a loved one lost is there inside all of us. So, chin up - do them proud and try to smile thinking about the great times and let the awful memories of the disease and the treatment and the pain go.