Between Birth and goodbye. The weight of December.

My mother’s daughter, born into a lineage of quiet strength and unspoken endurance. From childhood, she carried love in abundance love that flowed easily, generously, and sometimes painfully, toward those she believed would hold it with care.I saw pain, fear, tension, and a quiet hostility in her eyes emotions colliding, each struggling for space within her exhausted gaze. It was the kind of look that revealed more than words ever could, a silent confession of anguish too heavy to be spoken aloud. In that moment, her eyes carried the full weight of loss, abandonment, and unanswered questions.I wished there were something anything I could do to change the situation, to ease the burden she carried so visibly. I searched myself for solutions, for comfort worthy of her suffering, but found none. There was nothing practical I could offer, no words powerful enough to mend what had been broken. Helplessness settled over me, unfamiliar and unsettling.So I stood there, suspended in that fragile space between compassion and incapacity, looking on with a puzzled heart. My presence felt insufficient, almost intrusive, yet leaving felt impossible. I realized then that sometimes love is expressed not through action, but through witness through remaining when there is nothing left to fix.In my silence, I learned that standing beside someone in their darkest hour, even without answers or remedies, is its own quiet form of devotion.When she conceived, hope took root in her with sacred tenderness. She spoke to her unborn child in whispers meant only for the womb, dreaming aloud of first cries, first steps, and a future shaped by devotion. Motherhood, to her, was not merely an event but a calling she embraced with reverence. Yet fate, unkind and abrupt, intervened. She gave birth, and in the same breath, she learned the meaning of irreversible loss. The child she had already loved with a lifetime’s worth of affection slipped beyond her reach, leaving behind a silence too vast for words.She loved her husband deeply fiercely, faithfully, and without reservation. In her moments of vulnerability, she searched for his presence, his reassurance, his shared grief. But he was absent, not in body alone, but in spirit. Where she needed partnership, there was distance; where she longed for solidarity, there was an echo. His absence became a second wound, quieter but no less painful.Yet she did not grieve alone. Her sister stood beside her, steady as an anchor, bearing witness to her sorrow without demanding its end. I was there too, holding space for her tears, reminding her often silently that she was not invisible in her suffering. Friends gathered around her like a fragile shield, offering compassion where explanations failed, and presence where solutions were impossible.Through loss and abandonment, she did not harden. Instead, she transformed. Grief refined her into a woman of profound empathy, one who understood pain not as a weakness, but as a language shared by many. She survived not because life was gentle, but because love though fractured still found its way to her.She remains my mother’s daughter: a testament to resilience, a quiet monument to love that endured even when it was not returned, and a living reminder that sometimes, those who stand with us in our darkest hours are not the ones we expected, but the ones we needed most.It was only a few days to Christmas, that fragile season when the world insists on joy, when lights glow brighter in defiance of sorrow and carols speak of hope as though it were effortless. For her, the approaching holiday sharpened the ache. Everywhere, there were reminders of beginnings of births celebrated, of families gathering while she lay suspended between grief and recovery.Her mother and father were far away from the place where she stayed, separated from her not by indifference but by distance and circumstance. They longed to be near her, to wrap her in the familiar comfort of parental presence, yet could offer only prayers carried across miles and voices trembling through phone calls. Their absence weighed heavily, not as neglect, but as another cruel reminder of how alone she seemed in that sterile season.She remained in the hospital, surrounded by white walls that absorbed sound and time alike. The ward smelled of disinfectant and quiet endurance. Machines hummed softly, indifferent witnesses to her pain. Each night, she stared at the ceiling, counting the days not toward celebration, but toward survival. Christmas decorations flickered faintly at the nurses’ station tinsel and a small plastic tree symbols of cheer that felt almost intrusive against her mourning heart.Yet even there, love found its way to her bedside. Her sister came faithfully, carrying warmth in her eyes and strength in her silence. I came too, sitting beside her, holding her hand when words were too fragile to be trusted. Friends visited when they could, bringing not gifts, but presence the rarest and most honest offering of all. They spoke softly, careful not to rush her healing, understanding that some wounds do not close on command.In that hospital room, as Christmas drew nearer, she learned a difficult truth: that joy does not always arrive whole. Sometimes it comes fractured, disguised as endurance, disguised as the simple act of waking up and choosing to breathe again. Though her parents were far away, though her husband was absent, she was not abandoned.And as the season of birth approached a season that had taken so much from her she began, quietly and without ceremony, to give birth to something else within herself: a deeper resilience, a gentler courage, and a faith in love that did not depend on who failed to show up, but on who stayed. Toya my mother's daughter.

Other insights from Brony

Referral Earning

Points-to-Coupons