Will I be ok?

“You’ll be okay, I promise!”

These words may sound so cliché for some people, but for me, they are comforting.

They were the last words my mom had said to me when we last each other at the airport. She was about to board her plane to go back home. It was a rainy afternoon, and we feared her flight might get canceled. I was secretly wishing it would.

I was reminded again of those words when I found a letter from her. I had stored it away in my trunk—my go-to place for all things that I want to preserve and decide much later what to do with them.

That day, I happened to be looking for some of my childhood yearbooks to show my children how good a student I was at their age. I had removed a lot of old documents—expired passports, bank statements, canceled checks, birthday cards, clothes—that I had long forgotten were still in my possession. I was thinking some of these could not be shredded when I noticed the letter, carefully wrapped.

There it was, quietly waiting for me. I was way down, at the bottom on my luggage. I pulled it gently from under the books and looked at it, half victorious, half nervous.

This was my mom’s last handwritten letter to me. Soon after her passing, I had packed and stored all our correspondences and some of her clothes away in that same trunk. I guess over time they got pushed further down at the bottom of it.

The letter was wrapped in a sheer cloth. Wow! It still carried her perfume. I had sprayed some of it on all her belongings before storing them away. The scent had distinct notes of bergamot, jasmine, and lily-of-the-valley—all her favorites!

This experience was so overwhelming. I had not traveled this road in over at least decade and there I was, being brought back to those moments.

I smelled it again and again, kissing and hugging it, as if I was embracing my mother. Her stories, her smile, her voice, her affectionate words…all came rushing and spinning in my head.

The day this correspondence arrived in the mail I remember calling her to let her know about it. She had been anxiously waiting to know because—she had said—she still had a lot to tell me and teach me.

Seating at the edge of my bed, I held it for a while before opening it. It now looked like a vintage note from an antique store. The first-class international mail seal had faded. So did all the other colors. What once looked like a plain white paper was now a muted yellow. The small blue and red rectangles on the edges were washed-out too. 

I traced her handwriting with my fingers, moving along in circles and following every movement of her pen. The ink had also faded, making me feel so nostalgic of decades past, yet so grateful for everything I had remaining. I could picture her smiling as she was writing to me, flipping the paper to read several times and make sure she had said all she had wanted me to know.

For a split second, my sadness was replaced by a giggle. Looking at the envelope, I could not resist mocking her handwriting. I used to call them “chicken scratch” because I could never decipher what she wrote. They were quick strokes on a piece paper, just like a doctor’s urgent prescription of medicine to a patient before rushing out to see the next one.

Her time with us had gone by so fast. We were standing in line waiting at the check-in counter for her flight. We were next.

“You’ll be okay, I promise!” she had murmured, turning to my side with the smile that only a loved one can give.

With passport in hand and a printed copy of her ticket, she was waiting to do her check-in to get her boarding pass. When the officer signaled to come forward, I rolled her large suitcase—packed with gifts for family members and tons of medication—so he could help us place it on the scale. I was a bit nervous because she was traveling with a lot of things.

We held hands and I tried to hold back my tears. Before we even knew it, we were by the gates. I knew she was ready to go back, but I wasn’t prepared to let her go. Little did I know that it would also be the last time we would physically hold hands, hug, and smile to another.

She had arrived in the middle of the winter. It was a brutally cold one, so severe that it paralyzed everything: the heating system, necessities at grocery stores, gas to get from one point to another.

Two weeks after my mom’s arrival, my daughter was born. Within three weeks of giving birth, I had to return to work. Naturally, my mother looked after the baby while I went to work. Those long hours being away at work would create a unique bond between us, as she was the other mother to my child. 

When I came home from work, I felt like the occasional visitor, who happened to drop by. She would say, “Easy on her. She is human being, and she too feels your frustration today.”

Sometimes, to give me a chance to bond with my child, my mom would create excuses to step out to run a quick errand. I would be terrified to be left with the baby by myself.

“Remember, there’s no such thing as a handbook on how to raise a child,” she would say to me before heading out.

“Really? So how do you—”

“Every child is different,” she would reply, smiling. It turned out that parenthood was no joke, but she didn’t want to scare nor discourage me. In my eyes everything came easy to her.

As weeks went by, I started to figure things out and learned how to navigate my new role as a parent. When we would cook together, she would show me new recipes. When I yawned from the lack of sleep, I knife she had my back.

My harmonious family lifestyle of two generations living together worked perfect well. Everything changed however one Saturday morning. My father called. He was brief, as he always was. Small talk was his thing. He went straight to the point. My eighty-one-year-old grandmother had gotten ill. It was serious and she had seen the family doctor who asked for her to be watched 24/7. Her health was quickly deteriorating. He felt she should come back and see her before it is too late.

The news was devastating. There I was, selfishly needing my mom to stay. I also understood her desire to go home and be with her ailing mother. Within days, her return ticket was bought and picked up. We started preparing for her return. She was ready.

Soon after my mother returned home, my grandmother passed away. I was relieved that I did not prevent to have this closure. For some reason, it also escalated the end. My mom’s health deteriorated. She was constantly in pain, suffering from hour-long migraines that dissipated and then came back in full force.

A few months after, I received the call. That call. The one no one wishes to ever receive. She had passed away quietly in her sleep.

“Be strong,” I heard.

“Don’t cry, care for your baby who needs you now more than ever. This is what your mom would have wanted—” I could not hear the rest of my aunt’s voice.

Growing up, my mother always reminded my brothers and I that she was not eternal and that we needed to enjoy every moment spent together. This is why she smothered us with love. I knew her death was inevitable; I just did not expect it would happen so soon.

After she passed away, I felt almost like an invincible person—at least for a while. Her sudden loss left like a deep cut giving a pain so intense that I believed nothing could hurt me anymore. It couldn't possibly get any worse.

This was even more difficult to accept because I was brought up in a culture where people, women never spoke about pain. Life and loss of life are to be lived, period.

I was surprised to see how much attention people paid and made noise around the birth of a child. When it came to loss or grief, they felt uncomfortable about it. Even if it is a universal experience, going through was unique.   

What saved me during those initial years was being a parent and working. I worked to keep my mind busy, and parenthood revealed new feelings I had never experienced before.

Unconsciously also, I turned into my “mother’s daughter.” I acted like her, parented like her, and loved my child (now children) like she loved me.

I am so grateful for all her memories. In a strange way, this last message provided me with more clues about myself than I ever expected. With each year passing, the memories of her have helped me better understand who she was, what she believed in, the people whose life she had touched—directly or indirectly—and ultimately the person I have become.

As a child always in need of extra parental advice, I must confess that there are still days when I wished I could ask Siri to dial her number for me so I can say, “Hi mom, can you help me with— “and hear her soothing voice respond back to me.