Angelina Jolie opens up about enduring losses following her mother’s tragic death

Angelina Jolie remembered her late mother Marcheline Bertrand through a heartfelt and moving tribute, detailing how her sudden and untimely demise changed her as a person.

The Salt actor, 44, penned a poignant and heartfelt op-ed for the New York Times on the occasion of Mother’s Day, in memory of her own mom who passed away in 2007 at the age of 56, losing her battle to ovarian cancer.

"I lost my mother in my thirties. When I look back to that time, I can see how much her death changed me. It was not sudden, but so much shifted inside. Losing a mother’s love and warm, soft embrace is like having someone rip away a protective blanket,” she wrote.

She harked back to the time when her parents split up and parting ways with her husband Jon Voight, made Bertrand shift her focus entirely on motherhood.

"When my father had an affair, it changed her life. It set her dream of family life ablaze. But she still loved being a mother,” she further said.

"Her dreams of being an actor faded as she found herself, at the age of 26, raising two children with a famous ex who would cast a long shadow on her life. After she died, I found a video of her acting in a short film. She was good. It was all possible for her.”

Following her death, Jolie found a way to ink down a memory that stayed with her of her mother, through a small ‘W’ on her right hand, that referenced the Rolling Stones song Winter which she sang to her when she was a baby.

“As the ‘W’ faded on my hand, so did that feeling of home and protection. Life has taken many turns. I’ve had my own loss and seen my life take a different direction. And it hurt more than I imagined it ever would.”