TODAY IT IS 10

since you took your last breath. Easter days of 2014, the beginning of the war at home, your anxiety about "How will you live without me now" and your last conscious words: "You have grown up so much"...

I was afraid to cry near you and held back sobs in my throat, to the point of pain. It was physically painful for me to stay silent, and when I would escape the house, I cried aloud, releasing the scream outside.

She was leaving with pain. The last two days she was in a deep sleep but responded to our words and touches. My dad was with her both day and night. It was in his presence that she passed. And 15 minutes before that, I finally left for work, opening the balcony door wide in her room and saying, "Mom, if you want, I release you"...

Time flows in strange ways. In some cases, it drags like honey, without breaking into tiny fractions, while in others, it flies by in an instant. 10 years! That's an entire school journey from start to finish. It’s the path from a first-grader to a graduate. And here, it's as if it was all just one day, as if it happened only yesterday, and I can still sense the scent of her perfume trailing beside me. I remember her manicure and the hairstyle she had done four days before. She wanted to look beautiful. She knew she was leaving, but I didn’t. It’s unfair. Just like life itself.

God didn’t promise us fairness or a trouble-free life. In fact, the moment you accept God into your heart is when the real-life adventures and trials begin. But God promised us resurrection and to be with those we love and have loved.

In these 10 years, so much has happened, yet I can’t seem to write about it or share it. It's as if an enemy missile ripped through the muscle that writes within me. I don’t have the strength to lift my hands over the keyboard and make my fingers dance across the keys.

10 years. I’ll see you, Mom. I’ll tell you everything when we meet.

Your Nata Che.