The other day my mum left the house just like she always did. That morning shed messaged to ask if Id had breakfast. I replied, Yes, well talk later, and carried on with my tasks. She wasnt ill, she wasnt in hospital, there was no worry, no farewell. It was just an ordinary dayone of those days you never think will change anything.
At 4 oclock, someone rang me from a number I didnt recognise. It was a neighbour. She said, Your mums had an accident. I asked where she was, and the neighbour told me which clinic. I rushed there immediately. They told me shed fallen in the street, hit her head, and there was nothing they could do. No drama, no last words.
There was no final sentence, no embraces, no chance to say anything. I stood staring at a white wall while they explained paperwork, signatures, procedures. With a shaking voice, I called my brothers and spoke the hardest words Ive ever said: Mums gone.
The real blow didnt come in the clinic. It came when I walked into her home alone to gather her things. I opened her wardrobe and her clothes were still there, waiting to be washed. Her sandals were by the door, her purse hung on the chair, the shopping only half-put away. Everything was frozen in the exact moment her life stopped.
I picked up one of her blouses to pack it and caught the smell of her soap. I stood there, clutching the shirt, unable to move. I sat on her bed and stared at the floor for ages. Anger welled up inside me.
Then came the little things that hurt the most: dialling her number by habit, only to remember its no longer there; coming home from work and realising no one asks if you arrived safely; passing her house and not going in. No one prepares you for this silence.
People say, It was her time, God has His reasons, Shes resting now. But I dont feel peace. I feel absence. I feel she left on just an ordinary daywithout permission, without warning, and without any time to soothe my heart.
And what stings most of all is that it wasnt a goodbye. It was a sudden, sharp cut.
