Because right in front of me was the woman who had carried us for nine months each… the woman who had raised us alone after our father died… the woman who had worked day and night just so we could go to school.
And she was lying there like someone the world had already forgotten.
“Inay…” Mela cried softly as she rushed forward.
She knelt beside the broken bamboo bed and gently held our mother’s frail hands.
They were cold.
Too cold.
Miggy stood frozen behind us.
I had never seen my younger brother look so helpless.
Our mother tried to sit up, but her body trembled with weakness.
“Don’t move,” I said quickly, my voice breaking.
But she still tried.
She looked at us with eyes filled with tears.
“You… you’re all here…” she whispered.
Her voice was so thin it felt like it could disappear with the wind.
Miggy suddenly knelt down on the other side of the bed.
“Inay… what happened?” he asked, his voice shaking.
But our mother didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, she looked at us one by one as if she was making sure we were real.
As if she was afraid that we were just a dream.
Then she reached out with her weak hands and touched my face.
“My son… you came home…”
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
And at that moment, something inside my chest cracked open.
For years we had been working overseas.
We endured loneliness.
Long work hours.
Sleepless nights.
Homesickness.
Everything—just to make sure our mother would never suffer again.
But here she was.
Starving.
Living in a collapsing shack.
It didn’t make sense.
“It’s okay now, Inay,” Mela said while wiping our mother’s tears.
“We’re here.”
Miggy quickly grabbed a bottle of water from our luggage and opened it.
He carefully helped her drink.
She sipped slowly like someone who hadn’t had enough water in days.
The sight made my hands tremble.
I stood up slowly.
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