Journey Back to Mother





As noon approached, with the sun high in the sky and the city alive with its usual rhythm, Sara stood with her husband at the gate of the cemetery. She had come here to find her mother but somehow, she couldn’t. The block and unit number were written clearly on paper.

They had circled the same patch of ground again and again. Her mother’s grave should have been there but it wasn’t. Not where it was supposed to be. Her husband, calm and composed, had tried to reassure her. But even he a former army captain trained in navigation and precision — looked puzzled.

That’s when something broke open inside her. A quiet voice from somewhere deep within whispered: You are an uninvited guest here. You entered another domain without announcing yourself. The thought struck her not as superstition, but as a truth she couldn’t ignore. She turned around.

Stepped out through the cemetery gates. And stood still. Outside, in the sharp midday light, with her heart pounding, she called to her mother not aloud, but in the quiet of her mind: “Mom… I’m here. I can’t find you. Where are you? I miss you.”

It felt strange even absurd. As an atheist, this wasn’t supposed to be part of her story. And yet, here she was, whispering into silence. And somehow, it felt right.


She waited for a few moments more, then turned to her husband and took his hand. They walked back in, retracing their steps from the beginning, the same path, the same rows but this time, something was different. And this time they found her, right where she was supposed to be. The grave that had ‘vanished’ was now plainly visible. As if it had never been missing at all.


Her sister had once told her, “Look for her favourite plant.” And there it was growing beside the stone like a gentle marker. A sign. A soft hello. Her husband stepped back to sit under a nearby tree, perhaps still trying to make sense of what had just happened.

But to Sara, what mattered most was that she had found her mother.

The moment had arrived









Sara knelt at the grave. Tears welled in her eyes as she traced the letters of her mother’s name with trembling fingers. This time, the tears came without warning quietly, freely, and without resistance. During the funeral, she hadn’t cried at all. She had stood still, emotionless, locked in a kind of shock.

The weight of everything had been too much, too tangled. But now, here at the grave, the tears flowed naturally not as a reaction, but as a release. And as her fingers moved across the stone, the memories returned, all of it the ache, the confusion, the love buried under silence.

Her mother had always been a difficult presence. Their relationship was shaped as much by absence as by closeness. Sara had been sent away as an infant just two months old to live with an aunt. Her mother raised the others. But not her. No reason was ever given.

And when Sara came back at age five, it wasn’t to answers it was to more questions, and to a mother whose love often came wrapped in fear, suspicion, and control.

Sara’s relationship with her mother had always been a troubled one marked not just by conflict, but by a deep undercurrent of unanswered questions and unresolved emotions. The most painful of those questions had haunted her for as long as she could remember: Why had her mother sent her away to live with an aunt when she was only two months old?

It wasn’t as though her mother couldn’t care for her after all, she had raised Sara’s other siblings. There were seven of them in total. And yet, for reasons never clearly explained, Sara was the one sent away. Her mother only took her back when she turned five.

That early separation carved a silent wound into her. Over the years, Sara had asked again and again, hoping for clarity some explanation that would soften the ache or make sense of the choice. But every time, her mother would deflect, dodge, or change the subject.

No real answer ever came. And perhaps that was the hardest part not just the silence from her mother, but the echo of that silence in everyone else. Her second brother, especially, never let her forget it. “You don’t really belong here,” he would say. “You’re part of other family, not ours.”

And when she returned to her adoptive family, she heard something just as cutting. They told her she was too restless, too wild, too different.

​She is not one of them






So where did she belong? Not quite here. Not quite there. Suspended between two worlds, with neither fully claiming her as their own. And perhaps, over time, that sense of in-betweenness shaped her more than she realized. She stopped asking to belong. Stopped looking for permission to take up space. Stopped expecting others to make room for her. Instead, she learned to hold herself.


To stand on her own ground even if that ground was shaky. To build a self not defined by whose daughter she was, or which family claimed her. It wasn’t defiance. It was survival. And it made her strong in ways the world would never see.


In time, Sara came to see herself as a loner. Not out of rebellion. Not out of pride. But because it was safer that way. She didn’t crave crowds. Didn’t feel pressured to belong to any group. The absence of belonging had become familiar even comfortable. Solitude wasn’t lonely. It was home.


While others reached outward for validation, she had learned to turn inward to find steadiness in herself, and in the quiet. It was how she protected what was left of her heart.


Still it was a question that haunted her long after childhood had passed: What was wrong with me? Why I the one was sent away?​


She needed that answer more than anything but it never came. Sara had returned to her biological family because her mother had asked for her. But even as a child, a question had quietly taken root in her mind: Why now?


Why did she suddenly want me back after five years? It wasn’t until much later that she heard the reason or at least, what one of her aunts claimed was the reason.


“A soothsayer told your mother,” the aunt had said, “that the child she gave away would bring her good fortune. She didn’t want others enjoying the luck that was meant for her.”


The words hit Sara like a blow to the chest. Whether it was true or just another one of the cruel things relatives sometimes say without thinking she would never know. But the damage was done.


It left her with a deeper wound, one more difficult to explain: the fear that she wasn’t brought back out of love, but out of superstition. That her place in the family wasn’t rooted in belonging, but in ownership.


And once again, she was left to wonder: Was I ever truly wanted for me?







Even in the quiet rituals of family life, the ache of not belonging persisted. Her birthday was September 9th. Her sister’s was September 10th just one year apart. Every year, the family celebrated on the 10th. It made sense, really. One celebration. One cake. Less fuss. It was practical. And as a child, Sara never questioned it. She probably didn’t even notice at first. But looking back, it said something.


The spotlight always seemed to land just a little more brightly on her sister. Not in cruel or deliberate ways just subtly, consistently. Like background music she had grown used to. She wasn’t excluded. Just tagged on.


It wasn’t until she met her boyfriend who would later become her husband that the pattern broke. Every year, without fail, he’d send flowers and chocolates on the 9th. And that’s when her parents would remember. “Oh… it’s her birthday,” they’d say, noticing the bouquet. The reminder came not from memory, but from someone else’s love.


Despite all, Sara became her mother’s closest support not just as a daughter, but as a partner. Together, they managed the family’s catering business like a team. They shared the weight of planning, cooking, budgeting, and managing clients.


Her mother handled the flavours, the presentation, the creative flair. Sara took charge of the logistics costings, schedules, supplies, and accounts. It wasn’t always easy, but it worked. There was a rhythm between them a give and take built not on ease, but on necessity and trust. They stayed up late into the night discussing menus, tallying the day’s earnings, and griping about difficult customers.


They laughed about last-minute orders and shared quiet pride when a client complimented the food. In those moments, they weren’t arguing. They weren’t mother and daughter tangled in emotion.


They were businesswomen. Collaborators. Two women holding something together. And in that space, things felt if not perfect at least real. Tangible. Almost whole.


But if there was conflict between them, it always traced back to her father. Her mother, gripped by jealousy and suspicion, often accused her father of having affairs outbursts that came like waves, unpredictable and exhausting. But Sara never truly believed them. Not once.



When she was old enough, she asked her father directly. And he looked at her steady, calm and said no, that was enough. He didn’t plead, didn’t defend himself with dramatic declarations. He simply denied it. And for Sara, that simplicity spoke louder than any evidence could have.


She didn’t need proof. She didn’t go looking through drawers or following whispered gossip. She believed him. Because she knew him. Her trust wasn’t naive it was anchored in years of quiet observation. Her father, though emotionally distant at times, had always been her constant. Her compass.


The one who visited when no one else did. The one who showed up. And in a house ruled by volatility, that kind of consistency meant everything. Sara had always been close to her father. It wasn’t just affection it was history.


During her early years with her adoptive family, he was the one who visited. He brought her snacks, toys, quiet conversation. He showed up. Her mother didn’t. And children remember these things.






But beneath the accusations was a deeper, more fragile truth: they both loved the same man.

When her mother finally did come, Sara still a toddler refused to let her hold her. She struggled, turned away, cried. Small gestures, but enough to break something in a woman who had already given her child away. Perhaps that moment stayed with her mother forever a quiet shame she never spoke of.


Perhaps that’s when she realized: her daughter no longer belonged fully to her. And that wound never healed. Every accusation, every episode of paranoia, may have grown from that early fracture the fear not just of losing a husband, but of having already lost a daughter.


To be told by a soothsayer that the child you gave away would bring you luck and then to return and find that same child shrinking from your touch, crying in the arms of another woman. It must have felt like fate turning its back. It wasn’t just rejection. It was something deeper a reminder that love, once lost, doesn’t always return in the same shape.


That bond, once broken, isn’t so easily mended. Maybe her mother didn’t have the language to express that heartbreak. Maybe all she had were accusations, suspicion, control all of it masking the shame and fear that she had lost her daughter long before she ever got her back. Sara could see it now.


That moment of refusal so small, so childlike might have been the moment everything inside her mother began to unravel. As a nurse, Sara understood the toll of her mother’s mental illness and fragile heart. She had studied it, witnessed it in patients but living it at home was something else entirely.


Her mother’s moods could shift without warning swinging between clarity and confusion, warmth and accusation. There were days when she seemed like herself again. And there were days when she fell apart. Sara had been there through the worst of it the meltdowns, the paranoia, the silent crying behind locked doors.


She remembered one night in particular. Her mother had shut herself in the bathroom, trembling, lost in a storm of fear and delusion. And Sara, desperate to hold her together, had wrapped her arms around her and whispered, “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll always be here for you.” She meant it at the time. Every word. But in hindsight, she realized that promise became a chain. Not one her mother forced upon her. One she tied around herself.


A chain that sealed her fate for years. One forged from love, fear, and the aching need to keep someone from falling apart. When Sara began her nursing studies, she made the conscious decision to stay in the hospital hostel even though she didn’t have to.


Home wasn’t far. But emotionally, it was worlds away.



The hostel gave her something she had never really known: space. The ability to breathe without constantly scanning for the next emotional outburst. A place where she could sleep through the night, study in peace, and simply exist without walking on eggshells. It wasn’t just a room. It was a small pocket of autonomy.


But even then, the escape was never complete. Her mother’s presence followed her not physically, but through phone calls that blurred the boundary between love and need.






Sometimes her mother would call in tears, pleading for her to come home. Other times, the calls were angry accusations of abandonment, guilt-laced reminders that Sara had left her behind. “Why don’t you come back? You’re forgetting me. You don’t care anymore.”


No matter how many times Sara explained her long hours or her need for rest, the calls always ended the same: with a heavy silence on the other end, followed by the dull weight of guilt settling on her chest. That little room at the hostel may have provided peace but it came at a price.


Because even in solitude, Sara couldn’t stop feeling like she was letting someone down. As a nurse, Sara took pride in her ability to handle even the most difficult patients.


She was known for her calm under pressure, her steady tone, her ability to defuse tension with quiet authority. She was always in control never raising her voice, never taking things personally. She knew how to soothe the turbulence with patience, how to wait out the emotional weather.


She was trained for this. But that morning was different. This wasn’t a stranger in crisis. This was her mother. And no amount of training could prepare her for the sting of being called ungrateful, the weight of accusations that came not from reason, but from fear.


That morning, exhaustion and years of unresolved emotion collided and she broke. The argument had escalated, words flying faster than either could catch. What broke her that morning wasn’t the usual accusations about her father’s supposed infidelity.


It was a single sentence. One line that sliced through years of composure. "You’re an ungrateful daughter… I brought you back to this family, and this is what you do to me."


That was the trigger. It wasn’t just anger. It was betrayal wrapped in guilt, thrown like a weapon. In that moment, Sara wasn’t a grown woman. She wasn’t a nurse or a caretaker.


She was that five-year-old child again the one who had been “brought back” like a package, expected to be grateful for her place, even when it came wrapped in silence, confusion, and emotional debt.



Gratitude had been the unspoken price of her return. And that morning, it was used against her. Years of quiet tolerance cracked open. She snapped not in rage, but in deep, tired hurt. She had tried to be patient. She had tried to be understanding.


But this this rewriting of her existence as something she owed was too much. Sara snapped, her voice sharp with years of buried pain. "Yes, why did you take me back? Why? I never asked to come home. I never wanted this." Her mother stared at her — a long, stunned silence between them.


"You were being abused. Don’t you see that? That woman beat you. I saw the marks on your leg." Sara’s voice cracked. "No, Ma… I deserved it. I was naughty. I deserved to be punished. You should have left me there."


Her mother stared again. Something flickered in her eyes anger, guilt, or maybe sorrow and she opened her mouth as if to speak. But the words never came.


She looked away.





And in that silence, something inside both of them broke. After that exchange, the silence between them was thick. Her mother walked to the door, her voice flat and distant: "I’m going to JB’s house."


Sara didn’t reply. She was still shaking from exhaustion, from anger, from the words that had slipped out and couldn’t be taken back. As the door closed behind her mother, guilt crept in. She knew she had crossed a line. She hadn’t meant to say those things at least, not like that. But it was too late now. Still, part of her believed they’d talk later. Apologize. Reset. That once they both cooled down, the air would clear, and things could return to their uneasy rhythm. But she was too tired to deal with it now. She needed rest. Just a few hours of sleep.


She never imagined that would be the last time she would ever see her mother alive. When Sara woke up, she went about her usual routine. It was a night shift, starting at 9 p.m., and she liked to head out early. On most days, she would stop by the British Council before work — pick up the latest issue of Nursing Standard, keep herself updated on the latest clinical practices.


Then she’d grab a quick dinner and head to the hospital. That evening was no different. Until she clocked in. The moment she stepped into the ICU, the phone at the nurses’ station rang.


A colleague picked up and turned to her: "It’s for you." She took the receiver. It was her father’s voice. Tight. Abrupt. "You better come to TTSH." "Why?" A pause. "It’s your mother… she’s dead."


She didn’t speak. She just placed the phone down. No time to process. No time to cry. She informed her ward supervisor, left the ICU, and rushed out of the hospital the world around her suddenly unreal, as if walking through fog.


It was a Saturday night. Orchard Road was alive with lights, music, and weekend crowds. Sara stood in her nursing uniform, just outside Mount Elizabeth Hospital, in a long line of people waiting for taxis. But she wasn’t really there.


Tears streamed down her face as she stood quietly at the back of the queue, barely aware of the city moving around her. A Caucasian tourist nearby noticed her. He walked over, gentle and concerned. "Nurse… why are you crying?" Sara looked at him, her voice shaking. "I just received news that my mother passed away."


Without hesitation, the man took her hand and led her to the front of the line. Then he turned to the waiting crowd and said, clearly and firmly: "This young nurse’s mother just died. When the next taxi comes, she’s taking it. Anyone have a problem with that?"


No one did. The crowd silently nodded. No grumbling. No resistance. Just quiet solidarity a circle of strangers making space for her grief.



When Sara arrived at the TTSH emergency department, her father and brothers were already there, waiting in silence. A Nursing officer from the emergency Department approached her gently. “Come with me,” she said.


Sara followed her down a quiet corridor, past the triage rooms and cubicles, until they reached the “Brought In Dead” room.


A police inspector was already waiting. “You’re the daughter?” he asked, flipping through a clipboard.


“You’re a registered nurse?”








Sara nodded. “Your mother collapsed in the ambulance. They tried to revive her, but couldn’t. You know the procedure all brought-in-deads are police cases. Possibly coroner’s.”

Sara understood. As a registered Nurse part of her training, they're taught about police procedures with regards to coroner's cases. She explained her mother’s medical history the heart condition, the refusal to undergo PTCA.

The inspector listened, then nodded. “If you can get a private GP to certify the death, I can release the body. But otherwise, it has to go through the coroner.”

Sara made some calls, but her family GP was away on holiday in New Zealand. So the decision was made: her mother’s body would be kept at the mortuary.

They would wait until morning to appeal for a no post-mortem. “Bring her X-rays, medications, any doctor’s memos tomorrow,” the inspector said. “We’ll submit them to the coroner.” Then he paused.

“Ah — before I forget. The ambulance nurse said your mother before she collapsed she was holding on to a package. She told the nurse it was for her daughter the one who’s also a nurse. She said you were so tired this morning and would be sleeping. She didn’t want you to wake up hungry.”

He pointed toward the body. The food package was still there, placed beside her.

Sara looked at it. And something inside her broke. She sank to the floor, sobbing, cradling the package in her arms.

"Ooooh Mom…" I

​t wasn’t the food. It was the final, wordless proof that her mother flawed, complicated, emotionally tangled loved her. Quietly. Faithfully. Even in death.






And so, the funeral went on. It was quiet. Respectful. Everything flowed the way it should. The rites were done. The prayers were said.

The guests came and left. Sara stood there, silent. Numb. She couldn’t bring herself to say a final goodbye. Not because she didn’t want to but because she didn’t know how.

She is still angry with herself. It was the memory of their last conversation sharp, bitter, and unfinished that haunted her most. And it wasn’t just the words exchanged that morning.

It was the regret that followed. She knew her mother’s mind was fragile. She had seen it unravel in real time, over years of living together.

As a nurse, she had been trained to handle emotional volatility, to meet instability with calm. She had done it countless times for patients and strangers. But that morning… she lost it. She had walked into that house exhausted, emotionally spent, and unguarded. And instead of compassion, she met fire with fire.

That failure to rise above her own fatigue weighed on her more than anything else. She wasn’t just grieving her mother’s death.


She was grieving the way she had left her. How do you say goodbye to someone when so much was left unsaid? When love was wrapped in pain, and pain was wrapped in silence?

After that, life moved on as it always does. Her father remarried barely a year after her mother’s passing. Sara, too, got married the following year to her partner of 13 years.

About time as most of their friends commented. That she deserved happiness. She laughed. She worked. She have a future now with her partner.

Her Chinese cousin brother Edwin said something that stayed with her. "As long as your mother is alive, I don’t think you’ll ever get married."

​At the time, it unsettled her. But deep down, she knew he was right.






There had always been something unspoken a binding, a weight that kept her from fully stepping into her own life. It wasn’t just responsibility. It was emotional captivity. A silent pact she had made with her mother long ago: I won’t leave you. And in a way, she hadn’t. Not until her mother was gone.


Life had resumed its rhythm. But Sara was still learning how to walk with the silence. She never returned to the cemetery. Not in the days after the funeral. Not in the weeks, or months that followed.


It wasn’t that she didn’t care. It was that going back meant facing everything she had buried not just her mother, but the emotions she couldn’t name, the apologies she never gave, the forgiveness she didn’t know how to seek. So she didn’t go.


She moved forward instead. One day at a time. She married now. She worked. She laughed. She made a life. And she though she’ve overcome the grief. Sara thought she had moved on.


After all, life resumed quickly. She was newly married, building a home, diving back into work. She kept herself busy almost too busy telling herself that grief had passed, that she had made peace.


But grief doesn’t always come crashing in like a storm. Sometimes, it lingers like fog soft, quiet, and just out of sight. And perhaps that’s when the dreams began.


Her mother would appear without warning just sitting silently, watching her from a corner of the room as Sara went about her daily chores. No anger. No judgment. Just presence.


Strangely, Sara welcomed them. There was something comforting in those visits a familiar presence that felt, somehow, like forgiveness. She knew her mother had never liked her husband, had always believed he wasn’t good enough for her daughter.


So maybe these dreams were a way of checking in. Or maybe, just maybe, they were her mother’s way of making peace in the only way she could.


Whatever the reason, the dreams became a quiet bridge between them not enough for answers, but just enough for Sara to begin feeling again. Always the same: she would come and sit quietly, watching as Sara went about her housework. Just sitting familiar, yet distant. Present, but unreachable.​

Sometimes, her mother would mumble something soft, almost inaudible. Sara would lean in, straining to hear. Desperate to make out the words. But the harder she tried, the less she understood. The syllables turned into murmurs, the murmurs into indistinct noise like static, like a memory too far gone to retrieve.

​A part of her believed her mother was trying to say something important something she had never managed to say in life. But even in dreams, the words never came clearly.






It was as though the conversation they needed was still unfinished, caught in a realm just beyond reach. her voice soft, barely audible. Sara would lean in, straining to catch even a single word. But the harder she tried, the more the voice slipped away, like a whisper lost to the wind.

Perhaps that was the point. Looking back, Sara could see it now. All those years, her mother had been trying to tell her something something important. But Sara, tangled in her own anger hadn’t truly listened.

Looking back, Sara could see it now. All those years, her mother had been trying to tell her something something important, maybe even urgent. But Sara, tangled in her own anger, resentment, and unspoken grief, hadn’t truly listened. She had heard the words but not the meaning. She had been present but not open.

And now, the silence between them was louder than ever. As a nurse, Sara was no stranger to death. She had seen it in all its forms the violent aftermath of road accidents, the sudden collapse of a heart attack, the quiet fade of a terminal illness.

One moment, a patient would be smiling, waving hello, and the next, they were gone their heart stopped, their body still. She had stood in those moments more times than she could count. She knew, intellectually, that her own loved ones could go the same way. She had even rehearsed it in her mind the moment of loss, the imagined grief, the rituals that followed.

It was part of how she coped. But when the end came, no amount of mental preparation could shield her from the shock. It’s ironic, really you spend years bracing yourself, convincing yourself you’ll be ready. And yet, when death arrives, it crashes through you like a thunderstorm, knocking the breath out of your lungs and leaving you raw.

As a nurse in a hospice, Sara had always believed that she could handle grief. She had spent years caring for patients and their families, guiding them through some of the most difficult moments of their lives. She thought she knew grief well its patterns, its stages, its relentless ebb and flow. Sara had seen it countless times and had helped others navigate its stormy waters.

But when it came to her own grief, she was unprepared. She didn’t realize that grief isn’t something you can master or control. It’s not a process you can manage with professional detachment.

When it’s your own loss, it’s entirely different. She told herself she was strong, that she could get through it that she was in control. And on the outside, she wore that mask well.

To those around her, she appeared composed, graceful even, managing the aftermath like someone who had it all together.

It took only the smallest trigger a word, a scent, a fleeting image to

unravel her.




And for Sara, it came on an ordinary afternoon, when her sister visiting from the U.S. sat across from her and asked casually, almost gently:" I need to know… what really happened that day?"

That was all it took. In that moment, the façade shattered. The years of holding it together, of pretending she had moved on, of burying herself in work and routine all of it came undone. The full force of her grief surged forward like a wave she could no longer outrun. She crumbled. Not with dramatic sobs or shouting but with a quiet, uncontrollable meltdown. The kind that comes from deep inside, where sorrow has been stored too long.

And that was when Sara finally understood, She had never really moved on. She had only paused the grief, hoping it would disappear on its own.But grief doesn’t vanish. It waits patiently until we’re ready to face it.It was in that raw, vulnerable space that Sara finally understood: grief isn’t something you conquer. It’s something you learn to live with day by day, breath by breath. It’s messy, unpredictable, and refuses to follow any script.She began to accept what she had always told others but struggled to believe for herself — that it’s okay to not be strong all the time.

That sometimes, breaking down is part of breaking through. That healing often begins in the moments we let ourselves fall apart.Grief has a way of breaking us open. It reveals the rawest parts of who we are and teaches us, painfully and profoundly, that to be human is to feel even when the feeling threatens to undo us. That meltdown cracked something open. For the first time in years, Sara allowed herself to feel the weight of it all not just the loss, but the guilt, the what-ifs, the harshness she had directed inward all this time.

She had spent years blaming herself for that final argument. For being tired. For raising her voice. For not stopping her mother as she walked out the door.But slowly, in the quiet that followed the breakdown, she began to see things differently.She had just come off a brutal night shift. She had been sleep-deprived, emotionally drained.

She was human. And being human meant she, too, had limits. She wasn’t a bad daughter. She was a daughter who was tired. A daughter doing her best. A daughter still learning how to carry love in the middle of pain. That realisation didn’t erase the grief but it softened it.She started to reflect back on that morning not as a moment of failure, but as a moment of vulnerability. One of many that shaped her a part of her, not the whole.

It was time to stop punishing herself for not being perfect. Time to stop believing that if she had just been stronger, things would have turned out differently.Grief, she now understood, isn’t about perfection or resolution. It’s about learning to live with what’s left and learning to love yourself in the aftermath.

And then the dreams stopped.No more silent visits. No more wordless watching. Just absence.At first, Sara felt unsettled. She had grown used to those quiet visitations her mother’s presence hovering at the edge of sleep, like a breath that never fully left. But now it was gone. And in that stillness, a new feeling arose. Not fear. Not sorrow.

Just a need.A quiet, aching need to see her one last time. Not in a dream. Not in memory. But in the real world. To sit by her grave. To speak without interruption.

To say goodbye, the goodbye she couldn’t give before.That’s what brought her to the cemetery.

Not to find answers. But to find peace. To close the loop not with resolution, but with tenderness.



As Sara sat at the grave, her fingers resting on the stone, a fragment of her mother’s voice floated back to her — soft, familiar, and unexpectedly clear."When you become a mother, you will understand."She used to hear those words with resentment as another way her mother deflected responsibility, as something vague and dismissive.

But now, in the stillness, they echoed differently.Not as an excuse. But as a quiet truth. Because now, she did understand. Not everything. Not the choices. Not the silences. But the fear. The weight of love wrapped in uncertainty. The desperation not to lose a child even when love came out sideways, in accusation or control. The mess of it all.Maybe her mother never knew how to say sorry.

Maybe she never knew how to explain herself. But maybe just maybe she loved her more than she ever knew how to show. And maybe… that was enough.Sara didn’t come here to find answers. She came because she missed her. And in that missing, she finally found what she had been searching for all along. Not closure. Not clarity.

But compassion. For her mother. And for herself.As the wind rustled through the trees and sunlight filtered softly over the grave, a quiet truth settled into Sara’s bones: Her mother was gone. Truly gone. And she was never coming back.The pattern that had shaped Sara’s life the emotional cycles, the unspoken questions, the caretaking, the guilt had ended. And with that ending came something she hadn’t expected. Freedom. Not the kind you celebrate with noise or movement but the quiet kind.

The kind that unfolds in stillness, when you realize the weight you’ve been carrying is no longer yours to hold.For so long, Sara had been tethered to pain — to questions without answers, to the exhausting dance of loving someone who was both present and unreachable.But now… the chain was broken. Not out of bitterness. But release. She still didn’t know why she was sent away. She would never know. And maybe, that didn’t matter anymore.What mattered was this:Her mother was no longer suffering.

The storms in her mind had gone still. The fear, the confusion, the endless suspicion all of it had been laid to rest. And for the first time, Sara wasn’t haunted by what she didn’t know. She was comforted by what she did. Her mother was at peace. And now, so was she.Then, without warning, the wind began to shift brushing against her face, soft and steady, like a hand lifting a veil. It swept through her, cool and clear, carrying something intangible yet undeniable.And in that moment, something opened within her.

The answers she had searched for all her life no longer mattered. The wind or maybe something beyond it had brought her what she truly needed: understanding.Not in words. But in peace. As the breeze wrapped around her, she felt it her mother’s warmth, her presence, her quiet forgiveness. A soft letting go. The air carried a familiar fragrance delicate, sweet. Her mother’s favourite flower.Sara breathed it in, slowly, deeply. And in that moment, something touched her not on the skin, but within. A calm settled over her. And with it, a deeper truth took hold:She didn’t need all the answers. What she needed was here.

And finally it was enough.Her mother was gone. Truly gone. And she was never coming back. The pattern that had shaped Sara’s life the emotional cycles, the caretaking, the guilt had ended. And with that ending came something unexpected. Freedom.Not the kind you shout or dance about, but the kind that arrives in silence when the weight you’ve carried for years finally falls away. Sara didn’t get the answers.

And perhaps, she no longer needed them. Because what mattered now was this: Her mother was no longer suffering. The storms in her mind had gone still. The pain was over. The fear had passed.And for the first time in her life, Sara felt something she had never dared to claim for herself.

Peace. Real, quiet, whole. She closed her eyes. And for the first time in a long time, she felt free. And in that moment, something touched her — not on the skin, but within.A calm settled over her. And with it, a deeper truth took hold: She didn’t need all the answers. What she needed was here.

And finally it was enough. She stood up. Reached out her hand to her husband, who had been sitting quietly under the shade of a nearby tree. He took it without a word. And together, they walked away.

Sara never looked back.





“Freedom is not given to you by anyone you have to cultivate it yourself
Jiddu Krishnamurti



Author’s Note: This story is a work of creative fiction. All characters, events, and dialogues are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, living or deceased, is purely coincidental.

Copyright Notice: © Norhaiyah Mahmood. [ 2025 ] All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations for critical review or scholarly use.

Quotations: The quoted material from Jiddu Krishnamurti is used under fair use for educational and reflective purposes. Original source: J. Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known (1969).