The other day, my mum left home just like any other morning. She messaged me to ask if I’d had breakfast. I replied, “Yes, we’ll talk later,” and went back to work. It wasn’t anything unusual.

The other day, my mum left the house just as she always did. That morning, shed messaged me asking if Id had breakfast. I texted back, Yes, well catch up later, and got on with my work. She wasnt ill, she wasnt in hospital, there was no worrying, no farewell. Just another ordinary day. One of those days you think wont change a thing.
At four oclock, I got a call from an unknown number. It was a neighbour. She said, Your mums had an accident. I asked where she was, and she told me which hospital. I went straightaway. They said Mum had fallen in the street, hit her head, and there was nothing they could do. Just like that no drama, no last words.
There were no final sentences. No embraces. No time to say anything. I stood staring at a white wall while paperwork, signatures, and procedures were explained to me. I called my brothers, my voice trembling, and spoke the hardest sentence Ive ever had to say: Mums gone.
But the real blow didnt come in the hospital. It was when I entered her home alone to gather her belongings. I opened her wardrobe, and her clothes were still there, set aside for washing. Her sandals sat by the door, her purse hung behind the chair, her shopping only half put away. Everything was paused at the exact moment life was cut short.
I picked up one of her blouses to put in a bag, and I could smell her soap. I just stood there, holding her top, unable to move. I sat on her bed and stared at the floor for ages. The anger came.
Then came the small things that hurt the most: dialling her number by habit and remembering she wont answer, getting home from work and no longer having someone to ask if I made it back safely, passing her house but not going inside. No one warns you about this silence.
Everyone says, It was her time, God knows what Hes doing, Shes at peace now. But I dont feel peace. All I feel is absence. I feel she left on some random day, without any permission, without warning, without time to soothe my heart.
And thats what hurts most: there wasnt a goodbye. Just a sudden, sharp cut.