I still feel the weight of her hand in mine, even though she’s gone.
The room was unbearably quiet when the machines stopped and the nurses stepped back, leaving just the three of us: a mother holding her dying child, and a daughter slipping somewhere I couldn’t follow. I whispered that it was all right to let go, that she didn’t have to be brave anymore. That lie broke my heart, because Deborah had always been brave for everyone else.
Now I watch Hugo and Eloise navigate a world without her.
Their grief comes in waves: slammed doors, sudden tears, silent dinners.
I tell them stories about their mum before the cancer,
when her laugh filled every corner of a room.
We speak her name often, not as a wound, but as a promise.
She is gone from our sight, but not from our days.
Love, I’m learning, does not end; it simply changes shape.
