She died on my birthday.

My mother said that maybe she and I were connected.

My mind can't remember much -  a few memories - it wasn't as if we talked about our hopes and fears (all she ever asked me was pretty much if I wanted to eat), but it's almost as if my body remembers all those times she bathed my infant body, the birthday cake she fed me as breakfast for weeks on end (she couldn't let food go to waste) until I got sick of it, the wad of money she tried to slip in my hand as a send-off to university, so I end up in sudden fits of tears, gasping, my emotions heaving themselves to the surface, but I can't quite comprehend why. It's almost like a gut reaction.