**Diary Entry**
I stood by the window in my mother’s hospital room, the air thick with the scent of disinfectant and old rubber. Behind the curtain, she lay restless, murmuring names in her sleep—my brother’s, my father’s—but never mine.
*Again*, I thought bitterly. Memories surfaced: Mum laughing with friends, boasting how she’d secured a council flat with a pregnancy certificate.
“Who are you?” A nurse bustled in, gathering syringes.
“I’m—” The words stuck. All I heard was Mum’s voice, echoing through my life. *Certificate! Certificate!* That’s how I entered the family—not as a child, but as a “housing voucher.”
I was six when Mum showed guests round our flat. “Six square metres per person: Dad, me, Tommy, and… this.” Her finger jabbed my nose. I smiled, desperate for warmth, willing to earn it with laughter.
At eight, I broke my leg roller-skating. Surgery, months of recovery. When the insurance payout came, Mum cheered down the phone: “At least the girl’s leg was good for something—we’ve got a lovely new telly!”
That’s when I knew: even my pain was currency.
“You’re not a child, you’re a benefit!” Dad would chuckle. So I stopped seeking their attention.
I left when I married. “One less room to worry about—Tommy can have it!” No congratulations, just a blank card.
Each hurt tightened my heart, hollowed me out. I stopped calling. Not from pride, but the certainty I’d never existed to them.
Today, the ward was silent. Mum’s breath rattled. Suddenly, her finger twitched. “Certificate… Where are you?”
I froze. That word again.
“Here,” I whispered.
“Where’s my voucher?” She thrashed, eyes wild. “Where’s my housing voucher?”
Her gaze pierced through me—empty, searching for paper, not a person. Then she turned away.
Outside, an orange streetlamp cut through the dark. I choked out a whisper: *Universe, tell me I’m real. That I matter.*
Silence.
Then a memory surfaced: *No darkness is deeper than a heart starved of love. But in the wreckage, true love finds space.*
I wept—not a sob, but a flood. Tears washed away the label “certificate.” In the pain, I felt alive.
At dawn, Mum’s eyes fluttered open. “Vou… voucher?”
I steadied myself. “Here,” I said, voice calm. “But I’m not a document. I’m your daughter. Grace.”
Something shifted. Love, I realised, isn’t transactional. It’s a choice—to give, even when unseen.
I left the hospital lighter. No plans, no grudges. Sunlight dappled the park path. A girl dropped her ice cream, tears mirroring mine.
“Have mine,” I offered.
“Who’re you?”
I smiled, heart swelling. “Grace. Just Grace.”
Warmth pulsed inside—like a current, gentle but unshakable. The past was behind me. Birds sang, leaves rustled, children laughed. I’d come alive.
Back at the hospital, Mum slept. I took her hand, expecting nothing. The light in me spilled out, unasked.
That extra square metre had become an endless room. Because walls live in us—and only we can tear them down to let the light in.
**Lesson:** Love isn’t earned. It’s given. And sometimes, the first person who needs it is yourself.
