(Today, on World Cancer Day,
I remember those who suffer and those who leave.
Here, my mother rests in silence,
her journey through the pain now ended in 2016).

I have no one to call “Mother” anymore.
The phone rings, and my heart aches
I long to hear your voice,
asking, “How are you, my son? Aren’t you asleep yet?”
But you are just a memory,
and the world around me continues as if you never were.

When I bow in prayer,
I hear your whisper,
“Well done, my son, live with the fear of Allah.”
Mother is a word beyond words,
a miracle wrapped in love,
impossible to define,
impossible to forget.

You taught me to reach for the sky,
yet always keep my feet planted firmly on the earth.
In the quiet of the night,
I miss you most.
You were the light that brightened my thoughts,
the warmth that filled my heart.

Every wish of mine,
you answered with love.
You were the living witness to what it means to be human,
the kindest tree,
whose roots nourished the garden of my life.

Now, I wander in a world where you are no longer.
I am lost, with no place to hide my sorrow,
no place to shelter the love I have for you.
Memories rise like sharp thorns,
piercing the wound of my longing.

I never saw how much you suffered,
how you fought for every breath,
clutching life with hands too tired to hold.
My heart shreds with the weight of your absence,
my chest is hollow,
my eyes desert dry,
like a barren land where tears no longer fall.

I exist only in the space between memories,
counting the days as they slip by—
not in years, but in loss.
Sixty-five years you lived,
but how many of those days were truly yours?
How many did you live for yourself,
for your dreams, for your joy?

I miss you in every second,
in every tick of the clock that echoes your absence.
Here I remain,
a broken man,
lost in the shadows of memories
I cannot escape.

Today, I miss you most,
and I beg your pardon,
Mother.
I failed you.
I could not hold you back from the edge
where you slipped into the night.