I wonder if my mother ever gets mad when someone breaks my heart.
I wonder if my mother ever gets mad when someone breaks my heart.
I wonder if she sighs from the heavens when she sees me cry quietly in my room, holding my chest as if the ache could be pushed away with my own hands. I wonder if she wants to come down for a while and hold me the way she used to, brushing my hair back, telling me that pain doesn’t last forever even though it always feels like it will.
I wonder if she whispers to the wind and asks it to comfort me when I can’t hear her voice anymore. I wonder if she lingers in the corner of my happiest moments and claps silently, proud that I’ve made it this far even without her here.
I wonder if she sends me strength when I am too weak to ask for it. I wonder if she chooses the people who cross my path, placing kindness in my way to soften the sharp edges of this life.
Sometimes, I believe she lives in the small victories, like the first step I take after falling, the courage to forgive those I used to hold grudges against, the decision to keep loving even when love has hurt me before.
I wonder if she gets angry at the people who never saw my worth, the ones who left me shattered without knowing they were breaking something she once protected with all her life.
I wonder if she still thinks of the life she missed. The late-night talks, the wedding dress, the grandchildren she never got to hold…. I wonder if she ever wishes for just one more morning and one more chance to stay.
But maybe she doesn’t need to wish at all. Maybe she already knows that pieces of her live on in me. Perhaps she doesn’t dwell on what she missed because she can see what I’ve become.
Maybe she doesn’t ache to come back because she trusts that I can walk this road without her hand in mine. Maybe she knows that I am strong enough because she made me that way.
And so, instead of wondering if she feels regret, I choose to believe she feels peace. I choose to believe she watches with pride instead of sorrow. I choose to believe she is still here in all the quiet ways that matter, those woven into my heart, unbroken and unending.
Because even if she couldn’t come back for one more morning, she gave me enough mornings to last a lifetime. And even if she couldn’t stay, her love already has.
And in the end, when everything has to return to where it belongs, I’ll tell her stories, the ones I keep inside the vault of memories to unravel later when she sits by my side. The graduation, the wedding day, the first grandchild … the moments she had never truly missed because she was there for me all along.
