December 17, 2025. The phone rang and the room changed. My nephew’s voice was small, hurried, wrapped in fear, with that unmistakable quiver of someone trying not to fall apart. He told me his grandma had fallen. Rushed to the hospital. ICU. How she fell hurts too much to touch. I don’t know if I ever will. Some doors you leave closed because opening them means losing whatever breath you still have.

December 18, 2025. Still in the ICU. Stable, they said. But in a coma. Prognosis not good. Those words sat in my chest like stones. Heavy. Unforgiving. My girlfriend—whom she loved so dearly—and I booked tickets for the long road home. There was no thinking involved. Only motion. Only hope, thin as paper, but still hope.

December 19, 2025. We left in a rush. Airlines jacked the prices up more than 300 percent—daylight robbery, feeding on desperation—but none of it mattered. Not money. Not anger. Not pride. All of that shrank into nothing compared to the worry roaring inside me. My mum was waiting for a miracle.

December 20, 2025. The miracle didn’t come. I missed her alive by mere hours. She didn’t give up—I know her better than that. Her body did. Seventy-seven years can only carry so much love, so much fight, so much pain.

When I reached my father, he was no longer the man I’d always known. He was a husk. On the floor. Bawling. Crying out to heaven, begging for help that would not come. My brave father—my unshakeable father—undone. His cries cut through me, sharp and merciless. Every scream felt like a blade straight into my chest.

Days passed. Or maybe they just blurred together. Eventually, my father realized what his heart already knew: his wife, his best friend, his companion through thick and thin for fifty-four years, had moved on to the next life. We talked for hours. For days. About mum. About the past. About a future neither of us could see clearly anymore. He said he didn’t know what to do from here. I felt the same, but I stayed strong for him. At least I think I did. My siblings did the same. Our relatives too—everyone holding everyone else up, trembling but standing.

It was a time of absolute mourning. But it was also a time when people came together. Old grudges quietly buried. Tears shared without shame. A family broken, but gathered.

The first night, I stood there looking at mum resting. Tears streamed down my face. My lungs emptied themselves into the room with sounds I didn’t recognize as my own—raw, animal, endless. My heart broke again and again. The pain was total. Body. Soul. Mind. In that moment, nothing mattered. Not time. Not money. Not possessions. Nothing. Only the crushing realization that I would never see my mother on this earth again. No more text messages. No more hearing her voice. No more seeing her eyes light up when she saw me. No more warmth of her embrace, her kiss. Her stories—those stories she loved to tell me—would never be told again. Not by her. I felt forever lost, waiting for the day God might call me too, hoping with everything I have that I’ll see her then. I know she’s with God now. I know it. I believe it.

But mum… you promised to stay with me in Virginia in May. Three months, you said. The mountains. The woods. The beaches. They won’t get to know you now. It’s not fair, mum. This is too much pain for any one man to carry.

December 24, 2025. We buried mum. A part of my soul went with her. I know now I will never be whole again.

December 25, 2025. No Christmas for us.

December 30, 2025. I left for Virginia. As I made the journey back to my home, I felt incomplete. Sadness ruled me, followed closely by all the what-ifs. And yet—strangely—I felt a quiet confidence about the future and what lies ahead.

Mum, I know you’re watching over me. I still feel your love despite your absence. I may not be complete, but I am stronger. I will live my life. With every step, I will remember you. I will love you. I will keep making you proud.

Thank you, mum. For everything. Rest now. I’ll see you when it’s my time.