Imagine having one of the closest bonds a child can have, be ripped away from you at a young age. This is what Erin Peterson had to endure when her mother died from ALS when she was 9. A disease that slowly starts to slow down and take away body functions as it grows, and having to watch this as a child.
Losing a bond of a parent is hard enough, but bonds between a mother and daughter are very strong and living with only one parent is even harder. “Only having my dad was hard and him not really knowing how to punish us and going easy on us at the start was honestly kind of a bad thing. I think if he had told us yes it’s a difficult thing to endure but we have to get through it and have the same expectations, I think it would’ve been a lot easier to cope and not have a lot of change,” Peterson said.
She had to watch her dad not only cope with the loss, but then try to be a good parent and be a rock and provide for the family he was now in control of. She is very thankful for the way her dad raised her and she says he was a good parent that taught his kids good life lessons.
There are a lot of things she remembers about her mother even before her illness. She remembers going on trips and having game nights, along with all the good memories. She also said she remembers how much everything changed when her mother got the illness. “I remember my dad would sleep in his chair for about 6 months, because my mom couldn’t sleep laying down without choking on her saliva. It caused the family to adapt and know that yes something was gonna end up happening to mom, but she was in the comfort of her home and surrounded with the people she loved.”
She said she doesn’t really have trouble making bonds with other women and it’s actually the opposite. She latches on to those relationships because she feels like it fills the void of not having a figure like that in her life and it really does help at times.
She is now studying to become a nurse, not only to help people but to also be thankful of the people that dealt with and stayed with her mother. “They didn’t have to be at our house in the early hours of the day, but they did. They cared and that stuck with me.”
She wants to be the type of person to care about others and help families through illnesses and hard times. She always thinks about her mom and she knows she’s doing her best to make her proud and be the best person she can be for herself and for the patients she takes care of.