Another Year Without My Mother

Living With the Silence

"Another year dawned without you. And yet, every sunrise still feels incomplete without your voice."

Another year has passed without my mother. Time has moved on as it always does, following the calendar, indifferent to my grief. Days became months, months became years, but my heart never really moved forward. For me, everything still feels paused at that final moment when she quietly left this world.

People often say that time heals. I have come to understand that it does not. Time does not heal the wound. It simply teaches us how to live with it. It teaches us how to wake up every morning with a heaviness in the chest and still go on with the day. It teaches us how to smile when the heart is tired. The pain remains, gentle and raw, something I carry with me always.

There are moments when I still feel the urge to call her. When something small happens, or when fear or joy needs to be shared, my first thought is of her. And then reality arrives, suddenly and firmly. She is not there. That truth never gets easier. It only becomes familiar.

Another year without her means living with questions that have no answers. Words that were never spoken. Silences that were never shared. Festivals feel incomplete. Prayers feel heavier. Nights feel longer than they used to.

Yet, even in her absence, she is with me. I see her in the values she gave me. I hear her in my conscience. I feel her in the way I try to endure pain quietly, the way she did. I notice her in the way I hide my struggles so others do not worry, just as she once did for me.

She hid her pain so I could live freely. Now, I carry my pain so her love can continue to live.

Another year without my mother, but not without her presence. Not without her influence. Not without her legacy. “Maybe this is something many of us learn- that grief does not disappear. It simply becomes another dimension of our heart’s rhythm.”

She walks with me, unseen, in every step I take.

Dr. Jayaram Paul

In Loving Memory, a Son’s Reflection

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