It was an ordinary Saturday. A quiet morning, the kettle on the stove, sunlight drifting lazily through the curtains. I sat at the kitchen table, as usual, with a cup of strong tea, when the phone rang. On the screen—my son, Thomas. My only one. My light, my pride, my soul. Everything in my life had revolved around him. I gave him everything: love, care, sleepless nights, the last coins from my purse. After his wedding, calls became rare, but each one was like a breath of fresh air.
“Mum, we need to talk,” he began. His voice was measured. Even cold. Unfamiliar.
Something inside me tightened.
“Of course, love. What’s happened?” I asked, already feeling my heart beat faster.
He hesitated for a few seconds, then, as if steeling himself, spoke:
“Mum, Emma and I… we’ve decided you need to understand—we can’t see you as often anymore.”
I didn’t grasp it at first. Or perhaps I didn’t want to. He continued:
“We have our own lives, our own plans, our own responsibilities. And you… you interfere too much. Emma says you call too often. Turn up unannounced. We’re tired. We need space. Distance. Peace.”
I sat in silence, unable to utter a word. Only one question echoed in my mind: What did I do wrong?
“Thomas…” I whispered. “I just wanted to be close. I never… I never meant any harm. I just miss you.”
“I know, Mum,” he interrupted. “But things are different now. We want to live our own lives. We need… to separate. Do you understand?”
I nodded, though he couldn’t see it. Tears welled in my eyes. My hands trembled. I forced out the words:
“Alright. I understand.”
The call ended quickly. He said goodbye calmly—perhaps even with relief. And I remained in that same chair, in that same kitchen, with that same cup of tea, long gone cold.
I turned to the wall where old photographs hung. There was Thomas—just a boy, in his first school uniform. There he was at graduation. And there, holding a bouquet, standing beside Emma at the registry office. In every one of those pictures—I was beside him. I had always been there. Always.
I remembered carrying him in my arms when he was ill. Sitting up at night, reading him stories. Helping with his studies, guiding him through university, comforting him after his first heartbreak. And now, when he was all I had left in my life—he told me there was no longer room for me.
More and more, it seemed that old age wasn’t about years but about feeling unnecessary. About how the people you once lifted up now saw you as a burden. A stubborn shadow of the past, something to be cropped out of the frame of their new, happy lives.
My friends spoke of babysitting grandchildren, of children inviting them for Sunday roasts, consulting them, sharing their joys. And me? I was afraid to call. Afraid to hear irritation in his voice. Afraid I’d be called “too clingy” again. That once more, I’d hear—”we’re tired of you.”
But the cruelest part was this: I never asked for much. I never begged for money, never demanded help. I only wanted, now and then, to be near him. To see how my son was doing. To bake him a cake, to ask about his day. Was that really too much?
I’m no saint. Perhaps I did call too often. Perhaps I was too sentimental. I was just lonely. A quiet flat, the telly humming in the kitchen, a handful of old photographs—that was my life now.
Weeks had passed since then. Thomas hadn’t called. Neither he nor Emma. True to my word, I didn’t disturb them. I lived in my silence. Stared out the window and wondered: Was this the end of all the love I’d poured into him? So sudden, so cold?
It aches. But I’m not angry. I bear no ill will. I just don’t understand how the one person I lived for could now want me gone.
And do you know the worst of it? Not the emptiness of the house. Not the silence. But knowing that in someone’s life—where you were once everything—you are now nothing.
