Amazing writing, I have a mother similar to yours, trauma and mental health issues took my mother away from me.

I remember a kind, honest and caring woman who was my mother when I was very young, she was my role model and who I looked up to. But somewhere over the course of my childhood, that woman I remember went away and never came back, both metaphorically and literally (she ran away suddenly when I was 14 but she did return after 6 months, she's still physically around).

Sometimes I wonder if the mother I remember actually even existed, or if I just constructed this person from my own imagination and yearning?