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I was not ready for that phone call.
There are some sentences that split a life in two before you hear them,and everything that comes after. Mum is gone.
Even now,those words still sound wrong.
I still catch myself wanting to tell you something, something small, something ordinary, something you would have laughed at or warned me aboutin that way only you could.
Then I remember.
And the silence comes back.
Grief is strange.It is not always cryingbeside your photograph.
Sometimes it is cooking and suddenly remembering how you used to make it.
Sometimes it is hearing a voice that sounds almost like yourself and turning before rememberingthat you will not answer.Sometimes it is reaching for the phone because something happenedand you are still the first person my heart wants to tell.I thought losing youwould be one terrible moment.I did not knowit would becomea thousand little l chair.Your name. Your favourite things.
The stories I cannot hear again except in my own memory.
People say,“She is in a better place.”Maybe.But there are days when I do not need an explanation.I just need my mother.
I need your voice.Your warmth.Your presence in the room.
The subtle and caring scoldings The comfort of knowingthat somewhere in this worldyou existed and I could still call you Mum.
You left when I least expected it, and perhaps that is what hurts most—how ordinary the day wasbefore everything changed.The world did not stop.
Morning still came.People still went to work.The streets stayed busy.Someone somewhere laughed.
And somehow,I was expected to keep livingwith a piece of my life
suddenly missing.
So I am learning grief one day at a time.I am learning that remembering youdoes not always have to hurt.That I can smile at a memorywithout betraying the sadness.
That I can carry youwithout being trapped in the day I lost you.Mum,your life did not endwhen your breathing stopped.
You remainin the things yout likeaught me,in the love you gave,in the stories we tell,in the parts of methat became who I am because you were here.I cannot bring you back.
I cannot rewrite that day.But I can keep loving you in the only way I know now—by remembering,by living,by carrying your namegently through the years.
And when I miss you,I will let myself miss you.Because some people are too deeply lovedto ever becomejust a memory.
You are my mother.And even death cannot change that.
About the poet/writer:
Lilian Onyinye Okoloye is an interdisciplinary writer and professional whose life’s canvas spans healthcare, technology, and digital landscapes. Holding academic foundations in both Computer Science Education (BSc) and Digital Marketing Communication (MSc), she blends the precision of a technologist with the strategic instincts of a visionary storyteller. Grounded by her deeply empathetic work as a Healthcare Assistant, Lilian’s writing serves as a mirror and a bridge—distilling complex emotions, loss, and resilience into shared human meaning.
