- [Interviewee] My mum is Danette Burse;
an incredible and gentle spirit
who taught me everything I know.
That's who my mum is. (somber music)
- My mum is Doriane E. Miller.
- My mum is Marilyn Dresler.
- My mum is Kristian Gilmore Pine.
- You know I feel like there's not too many people
you come across in the world that like,
every moment you have together is just like
intrinsically beautiful.
- She is an amazing woman.
The most stubborn, strongest woman
I've ever met.
- She really pushed me,
she really motivated me to do all these things,
she helped me.
- She can make everybody her friend kind of
and I think that's something that she gave to me.
- I know a lot of people like in this world
like they hold grudges.
She had an incredible ability to forgive.
- My mother died of pneumonia.
Remember seeing my father cry for the first time
but other than that I don't really remember much
outside of home videos.
- My mom got really sick when I was really young.
- They missed a lump in one of her breasts
and the lump spread through her second breast;
hair, lymph nodes, stomach, back, and brain,
and they only gave her six weeks to live,
and I was a sophomore in high school at the time.
- My mom was diagnosed with a rare form of breast cancer
and in September of 2014 she passed away.
- I didn't really know how cancer was going to work.
I didn't know how quickly it would act.
- She passed on May 1st.
We buried her May 3rd.
My birthday is May 5th.
I graduated on Mother's Day May 9th.
- It's one thing to like lose a parent, you know.
It's also like another thing to lose a best friend.
I think that it's not something
you ever really get over, you know?
You just learn to understand what it means.
I just learned to love harder.
- I lived in fear for many, many years of my life.
She was sick for eight years
before she finally passed away.
Every morning I would go to school,
not sure if she'd be there when I got home.
- She was such a good person
that would listen and just give eloquent,
and intelligent, and thoughtful responses,
and caring responses.
- I used to have to like do those science fair projects
that everybody has to do with like the poster board
and everything like that,
and my mom would like get more excited
about the project than I would.
So like, I would stay up all night long,
putting together what I thought
was an incredible project,
and I would wake up and like the poster board
would be completely different.
It would be like cut-out and like trekked down,
they'll be like 3D and all of this stuff,
and we would just have this moment
where I would just like look at her
and she'll look at me.
And I remember coming home with the first place medal
and I was just like Mom we did it!
And she was like, "Yeah, we did that."
- The day after she had this brain operation,
I wrote this paper and it was garbage.
And she took it and she revamped the whole thing,
and when I got it I was like,
this doesn't even sound like I wrote this,
I don't know if I can submit this.
She was like, "You'll be fine. Just submit it."
And I got the paper back the next day
and I got a B plus,
and she was so pissed because she didn't get an A,
and that's the type of person she was.
- As I grow older and realize more
how my mom kept it together for us
and how long she fought to stay alive
to be around for her children,
that's who my mom is.
- I find myself talking to my mom
at least once or twice a day.
- Certain times I talk less,
sometimes we talk more.
You know it really depends on
how bad of a day I'm having.
- I say hi to her everyday.
Sometimes out loud, sometimes not.
- I felt like intrinsically like she became my argonaut,
like she gave her life to be a protector for me.
And so I got this tattoo that says argo
and I got it at all lowercase
because she was an extremely humble person,
but I got it in bold because her presence was felt
wherever she went,
and I got it on my foreman
because I wanted to wear her bravery on my sleeve.
- Mom, I just want to say I love you
and thank you for everything you've instilled in me.
- Even though she's not physically here,
my mom is still very much a part of me
and who I am everyday.
- Thank you for everything.
Thank you for your sacrifices
and everything you did for me, for Seth, for Emmett.
I hope we've made you proud.
Everything that we've done is because of you.
Everything we've wanted to do,
everything we've driven for is because of you.
- Mom I love you so much and I miss you everyday,
and I still think about you everyday.
Even though I only had it for a limited amount of time,
I feel so lucky
to have the bond that I did with my mother.
- We used to have this thing where like
we would never say goodbye.
So it's not goodbye.
It's just see you later
and
I'm okay.
We're okay.
I love you.