Losing your mother before Mother's Day.

To those children and adults who have lost their mothers the day before Mother's Day, that is the hardest death you will contend with. No one wants to lose their mothers. Especially not before the day that celebrates our beloved Mothers - the mothers who wiped our tears from our faces when we were sad, shared our joys, our triumphs, our losses. She, our beloved mother never taught us how to cope with losing her.

We were able to cope with the losses of everything else but not her. She who birthed us, never taught us how to live without her. We always depended on her for everything from advice on relationships to helping us raise our children, but she never taught us how to handle losing her.

I lost my mother to cancer on May 12, 2012. I, freely admit, that I am a momma's girl. I loved and adored my mother. I never expected to lose her to cancer the day before Mother's Day. The pain that I felt losing her the day before Mother's Day was overwhelmingly hard. I was among family members on Mother's Day, but I wanted not to be there to celebrate Mother's Day as my mother was no longer there and everyone was smiling and happy, but for me. I was miserable. My heart ached with heartache that no child should ever bare in their lifetime.

Every Hallmark Mother's Day card commercial or seeing a happy scene with a mother of any kind to hearing a song that speaks of loss or love, pains my heart even more as the days, weeks and months and years gone by. I can barely handle listening to Oh Holy Night as that was my mother's favorite Christmas carol. Once, I was able to handle hearing it, but now, I actually had to leave the holiday bag line because of my heartache when I heard Oh Holy Night being played and then the line started to get really fast and I got backed up and started to lose control over my emotions.

I told no one on the line that I was hurting emotionally during that moment, I lied to everyone about my tears that I was crying because of the song, it was mainly because the song is . . . was my mother's favorite Christmas song. But the thing is, every time May 12th comes around, my heartache grows bigger each year as I get older, the more I need my mother by my side and I don't have her because she's gone.

People say you only have one mother. I say, treasure your mother, for one day, she might not be there anymore to give you helpful advice about love, relationships, how to handle your children or just to talk about your day. I wish that I had my mom right now as I have so much to ask of her that I never really was able to ask her before.

But losing your mother the day before Mother's Day, and celebrating that day, is never easy as your heart is crying in pain. No matter how your heart is grieving, as long as you remember the love that your mother gave you will be enough to start the healing process but the ache will remain when the sun rises.

eBook authors are authors too!

An eBook author Elizabeth York had posted a status message on her Facebook page about 18 hours ago, which highlights the need for Amazon to make all eBook purchases nonrefundable.
This is the status message that she posted:
Wow! I am completely speechless. I had seen one of the books purchased were returned and then I noticed more... Didn't think anything of it until I got a email. I don't even know how to reply.
"Ms. York, I wanted to tell you that your books are above par and you should be proud. I was able to read them all, but sadly I returned them all because they range from $0.99 to $2.99 and that is just too much for me to spend on a ebook. Can you please make all your books in the future free so that I do not have to return it?"
Sadly, we do not know who this reader is, so we can call them out on their blatant disrespect for eBook authors and report them to Amazon.com for abusing the return system. But they may state that they were able to refund the money to the buyer as they were unhappy with their purchase. Excuse me, Amazon.com, but don't you have a non refundable policy on applications like computer systems and the stuff like that? And yet, you don't have it for the eBooks that you sell on your site?
It is time for Amazon.com to start closing that refund length for eBooks from 7 days to 1 day since it would make the 'reader' really intended on buying the eBook. Seven days is way too long and it leads to abuse which people are doing and the authors are getting shafted by it.
Amazon has their frequent returner algorithm to prevent pirates from stealing books but they tend to overlook that if you put a time limit of being able to return the eBooks, the readers will have to decide if they want to keep the book or return it. But they would have known what the eBook is about by the preview chapter, they have no real reason not to keep the eBook.
The price that Elizabeth York priced her eBooks at is really good and fair price for an eBook.
The readers must understand that we, authors, may make writing look easy but the thing is, it can take years for a single book to be finished or as long as a month or two to be done. We work hard at writing and then there is the process of editing and finding the perfect cover and fonts for our books and then figure which format to put our books into - hard cover, soft cover, eBook format or audio format and then, we chose the price of either $0.99 to $19.99 for hard cover books.
Please do not treat us, eBook Authors, as we're not worth the money you spend on buying our books and tell us to give you our books free of charge, would you like to go to your job and your boss tell you to work overtime for the next two weeks and at the end of those two weeks and you look at your paycheck to find nothing in there, that is what you do to the authors when you return a book, we don't get a paycheck for our hard work. Every book you buy from us, a child is getting her school supplies bought for the new school year or keeping food on the table or the lights and the roof over their heads. So please think about where the money will be going towards before you think to return the eBook.
If you support authors of any style of book formats from soft cover, hard cover, audio books and eBooks, please sign this petition to help close the refund gap at Amazon.com - Stop the return thefts of eBooks.