I was in 4th grade and it had barely been a month since I turned ten. I'm in 8th grade now and the memory still haunts me sometimes as if it just happened. I had just gotten off the school bus and was in a good mood, excited even because I had a field trip the next day. As soon as I walked in the door I was taken shopping with my mom and it was just like any other day. Then she received a phone call in the car. This wasn't unusual, but this time when we pulled into a store parking lot, she came out and asked me to wait. So I sat and waited while she moved away a bit to talk. When she came back to pick me up she was quiet and when we walked through the store and I begged her to give us all the usual toys and snacks she didn't say no she just put them in our basket and left. I didn't notice it at the time, and it wasn't until I relived the next day that I realized everything she had done. When we finally got home, she took my sister and me together to her room and told us the news. Our father had died of a heart attack. Even though they were divorced at the time of her death, I could tell it hit her hard. After she told us it was like a shield she was holding had collapsed and she cried with us by her side. Now our mother had to fully assume the role of a single mother of two young children, not to mention our older siblings who she still had to worry about, the oldest still in college and the other moving across the country. When I think back to those days after her death, I start to notice things my mother did for us that I might not have even blinked at the time. I hadn't yet realized everything she had done and what she still does. After that, I really looked closely at everything she did and decided that my mom was truly my personal Michigan hero. I ...... middle of paper ...... more but my mother does everything she can to make up for it. Sometimes I think about the fact that one day she won't be here with us anymore and I worry that day is too soon. Last week she had surgery and although she feels better now, I have random anxiety attacks that a complication will arise later than it should. Then she already has a heart aneurysm that technically threatens her health every day of her life. Still, my mother is tough and she almost doesn't complain about the way my sister and I behave sometimes with a simple cold. I love my mother for everything she does for me, my sisters and my brother, for my niece and nephew and just for the whole family. I hope she lives a long and beautiful life with all of us despite the health issues she currently has. She is an extraordinary woman and when I grow up, I hope to acquire the qualities that make her so beautiful..