Thanks Bebop & MaggieMay, for your kind words.
I'm not a religious person &, as I'd written, don't believe that my mother is watching over me-I rely more on scientific facts, & I do know that life is energy, & energy can neither be created nor destroyed. When she was still alive, I told her that I don't know what will happen to that "energy" (soul) that is her, but that I do know that it will never be extinguished. We agreed & I think it made her feel better. My beliefs didn't stop me from asking her to give me a "sign" after she passes. She told me she would think about what she would do. But when I asked her again what it was, she was in so much pain & so sick that she just replied, "I don't know" & didn't want to think about it. So I never got an answer. The day after her funeral, I literally thought I was going to die of loneliness & a broken heart & cried & begged for her to please give me a sign that she is still w/ me b/c I didn't think that I could go on living in this world w/out knowing that she was still w/ me. I know she understood how alone & sad I feel, b/c she knew that I had planned to commit suicide & only stayed alive for her when I found out she was sick, promising that I wouldn't until after she died so I could be there w/ her. I know that she would be giving me signs, & believe me, I've looked. There was something that happened the next day that I noticed & when it happened, I cried, & told my father about it. I want very much to believe that it was her. My dad & I both believe that sometimes people see things that they want to believe, b/c one of my siblings says his wife "heard her voice telling her something that came true", & his wife is the last person in the family my mom would speak to if she could (we know she's lying, which is really sick) & none of my other siblings, who aren't even as skeptical as I am, have reported any signs whatsoever. And so I really don't know if that's what I'm doing. I keep wondering why she would only do something once & never again if she were really looking after me or is with me. But no one knows what really happens after another dies, & maybe it was her only chance of saying goodbye before going to another place. I really don't know, & at this point I want to believe that it really was her, so that's what I'm going to hold onto, despite that I think I'm being irrational, but I guess I need to believe it. I just need to hold onto that. It's been almost two months, & the sadness just gets worse... she was 82 & I'm lucky that I had her for that long, but I wish she didn't have to go in such a horrible way, & I just miss her so very much. I don't know what I'm going to do when my dad dies. I feel so badly for not being as supportive as I should be for him right now, but I'm in such a bad place that I don't want it to bring him down even more. All I can hope for is that the coming year will be better & that time will heal everything.