Her heart was an immortal, incandescent inferno that radiated nothing but contagious rapture. Her laughter tasted like a maraschino cherry, the flamboyant echo of the giggles mimicked the burst of the syrup-soaked fruit in between a sturdy pair of molars. Her soul was as celestial as the solar system, every facet of it shone brighter than the infinite constellations combined. Despite my best efforts, her memory has now been belittled by the creak of her hospital cot bed -- a parked cab with the meter running. Her open-handed heart became characterized by the cardiac monitor's mechanized heart beats, her chuckling was reduced to upchucking, and the luminous soul she had once possessed flickered away fast. If there is one thing that can completely metamorphose a mindset on everything within this world, it is the death of a mother.   Donna Virginia Vorwerck was her full name. For most people, it is a faceless name that rolls off the tongue with ease and peace of mind. For a select portion of people, myself included, it is a serpentine subject that injects fatal amounts of venom into our memory-filled minds. Just like parasites, the reminiscences of my mother always find a way to crawl back into my cranium and multiply maliciously. Since day one my mother was a die-hard fan of the pop music sensation Madonna. I sense a large portion of her admiration had to do with the fact that she shared the last two syllables of Madonna's name. One of her favorite original Madonna tunes, "Holiday , played on the radio the other afternoon and transformed into an animate audio recording; like how the pumpkin in Cinderella was magically morphed into a horse-drawn carriage. Comparable to the carriage, the beat of the song came alive before me and was in-sync with the vivacious beating of my heart. I became one with the song, and ultimately tuned in to the memories associated with it like a child engrossed with Saturday morning cartoons. To a nine-year-old verging on double digits, becoming ten years of age was as monumental as the Empire State Building. It was August 23rd, 2006, the day of my 10th birthday.  My birthday party was held at a dainty pottery painting place, sprinkled with alluring art deco windows, creative tea cups constructed by kids, and the familiar and pungent smell of paint that clobbers the nose like a wheel of bleu cheese. It was a perfect occasion, being surrounded by my best friends and the most amazing mother in the whole wide world. Though the petite pott