It's still fucking weird and sad that my mother's gone now. I've lived far away from my parents for many years now, so I was already used to seeing her rarely, but...
...having a choice is very different from not having it, even if you rarely make that choice.
Even if you rarely go outside, you're still going to object if that choice is suddenly eliminated because someone locked you up and threw the key away.
It took her death to make me realise just how significant she was to me.