I Didn’t Know My Mother Was Dying. How Is That Even Possible?

I didn’t know my mother was dying.

How is that possible?

Oh. You didn’t know my mother.

My mother was a fighter. And when I say fighter, I mean she fought everything and everyone. The law? Not for her. Rules? Not for her. Saying no to her? Do you want war? She was ruthless for what she wanted. Set her mind to something and she would have it , no matter the consequences, no matter who stood in the way.

She was radiant. Confident. Stunning in a way that felt almost unfair.

She kept her eyebrows perfectly shaped and her nails done at all times. Her skin glowed. Her hair was silky smooth. She dressed like old money, like a store mannequin that had somehow come to life. People always mistook her for my sister. And honestly? For good reason.

My mother invested everything into hiding the fact that she was dying.

And she fooled me. Her only daughter.

She was never the kind of mother who nurtured. Who protected. Who made you feel safe enough to fall apart.

She was the person who birthed me, but mothering, in the softest sense of the word, was not her language.

What she gave me instead was resilience. She raised me to be strong. To fight. To bend in the wind but never break.

I am like grass in a field. Strong winds come, and I bend. I don’t break. I’m not allowed to break. I can’t be weak. I can’t show fear.

For a long time I was grateful for that.

But somewhere along the way I realised I never learned how to feel safe. Safe enough to be vulnerable. Safe enough to need someone.

That was just not my mother.

And I have spent my whole life trying to be the version of myself she would be proud of. Because that is every daughter’s quiet dream, isn’t it?

The approval of their mother.

But maybe, maybe I just didn’t want to see it.

Somehow I smelled death before I could see it.

It’s a strange scent. It stopped me in my tracks the first time. I opened all the windows. Pulled off all the bedding. Jumped in the shower and scrubbed and scrubbed trying to get it off me.

My mother always smelled like my mother. A scent so familiar, so specific, so entirely hers. Warm and pleasant and safe in a way that nothing else was.

Until it was gone.

Cancer stole my mother from me long before the 21st of December came around.

Cancer doesn’t care about plans.

Doesn’t care about the person it’s silently eating from the inside. Cares even less about the people watching helplessly from the outside, seeing the person they love vanishing, day by day, right in front of them.

First it’s slow. And then suddenly, without warning, it moves so fast it catches you completely off guard.

That morning I was half asleep when my phone rang. 

My generation doesn’t do phone calls. When my phone rings my heart stops.

4am. This can’t be good.

Morning Sushmita. We need you to come to the hospital.

I was already dressed before I’d even made the decision to get up. As if some part of me already knew.

My husband drove. I can’t tell you what I was thinking on that drive. I can’t remember it. I just remember running. Up the stairs. Praying

Mom, wait. I need to tell you something.

The day before, my mother had been pushed into theatre for a surgery the doctors had advised against. But like I said, my mother got what she wanted. Always.

I had kissed her on the forehead the morning of.

See you soon.

Hours later I was there when they wheeled her out. She looked weak. But awake. And I will never forget what I saw in her eyes as she stared up at me.

My mother had the most stunning eyes. Rare and green, like looking into a ruby the way light bounces off it. They were the one thing I always wished I had inherited from her.

In those eyes, for the first time in my life, I saw something I had never seen before. 

Fear.

My mother was scared.

And that, that, broke me. Because if she was scared, then something was terribly, irreversibly wrong.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. Leaned close. Whispered

Mom, it’s okay. You’ll beat this. Like you always do.

I had seen my mother in worse states. Hours later she’d be fine. She always was. My mother was not immortal, but she was my mother. And dying was simply not something she would choose.

My mother always got what she wanted.

I wish I had used different words.

I wish I had said ,Mom. It’s okay. You can let go. I love you.

Because for the first time I saw my mother truly suffer. And for the first time I hated being strong. Because strong also means hard. It means you sometimes can’t recognise pain and suffering in others because you’ve never once allowed yourself to feel your own.

She didn’t need me to be strong in that moment. 

She just needed to be loved.

She had fought cancer hard. So hard that I had no idea how sick she really was. Doctor-patient confidentiality didn’t help. She never let me come to her appointments. Always told me she was fine.

And I believed her. Because she was my mother. Of course she was fine.

As I ran up that flight of stairs, all I could hear was my own heartbeat.

I didn’t know that hers had already stopped.

Silence was what I found.

A doctor who didn’t need to say anything.

A white body bag.

And my mother, gone.

Just like that.

Cancer won.

I’m still learning how to live in the world without her in it. Still learning how to grieve someone who was complicated and beautiful and frustrating and mine.

Still learning that you can miss someone deeply and mourn the relationship you wished you’d had, both at the same time.

Grief is not simple. It is not one feeling. It is all of them, all at once, without warning, forever.

But she was my mother. 

Extraordinary. Difficult and dazzling and entirely herself until the very end. 

And I loved her.

And I wish I had said it more.

-Sushmita