The Loss

My mother’s health was failing. The stress of the past few years had taken its toll, and her body was giving out. I spent as much time with her as I could, holding her hand, telling her I loved her.

“You’re going to be fine, mija,” she said. “You’re going to have a wonderful life.”

“I don’t know if I believe that.”

“Believe it. Because it’s true. You’re stronger than you know. You’ve always been stronger than you know.”

I kissed her forehead and held her close. I didn’t know how much time we had left. But I was going to make every moment count.

My mother died three months after the appeal was granted. She’d been sick for so long that her death wasn’t a shock, but it still devastated me. She’d been my rock, my anchor, my reason for fighting.

On her last night, I sat by her bed and held her hand. She was weak, barely conscious, but she opened her eyes when I spoke.

“Mija,” she whispered. “You’re so beautiful.”

“Mom, I’m not. I’m tired and broken, and I don’t know how to keep going without you.”

“You don’t have to keep going without me. I’ll always be with you. In your heart. In your spirit. In the person you’ve become.”

She squeezed my hand, and then she closed her eyes.

And then she was gone.

The grief was overwhelming. I didn’t know how to live without my mother. She’d been the one constant in my life, the one person who’d never given up on me, no matter what I’d done.

I cried for days. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t function. I just lay in my room, broken and lost.

But eventually, the grief began to fade. It didn’t disappear; it never fully disappeared, but it became manageable. I started to get out of bed. I started to eat. I started to live.

Because that was what my mother would have wanted. She’d fought so hard for me to survive. I couldn’t let her down.