My Mother, My Dawn, My Prayer

My Mother, My Dawn, My Prayer

Last night, my mother came and slept by my side.

We don’t always do that — but somehow, God sent her to me.

A mercy before the storm.

At 4 AM, at the fragile hour between night and dawn,

I woke up to the sound of her breathing —

not normal breathing, but a deep, heavy struggle for air.

I touched her.

I called her name.

Her body was there — but her awareness was slipping away.

That was the moment I discovered she was having a stroke —

a sudden attack in the brain that steals movement, speech, and light all at once.

Some call it a medical emergency.

But to me, it felt like the world collapsing in quiet slow motion.

I rushed.

I cried her name.

I held her hand like it was the last rope between us and life.

Today I sit next to her in the hospital, watching machines breathe beside her,

but believing — fiercely — that God is with us.

I know God saw me when I tried.

He saw every promise I made with a sincere heart,

even when my strength wasn’t enough to fulfill everything I dreamed.

He knows my intention.

He knows my loyalty.

He knows my love.

My mother is strong.

She is both thunder and tenderness.

Her loud voice and her soft heart lived in the same breath.

She loved food, she loved life, she loved living with all her senses —

and whenever someone came home carrying fruit or sweets,

her eyes would light like a child meeting joy for the first time.

And now she lies silently, eyes closed, fighting the greatest battle of her life.

I hold her hand and whisper:

Mama, come back to me.

Come back to life.

Come back to our dreams.

It is enough for me that you are my mother.

I want nothing more from this world but you.

In my country, illness has a price — a painful one.

Hospitals are for the rich.

And the poor?

We hold faith like oxygen, because faith is what we have left.

But I promise you, Mama —

and I promise this to every mother fighting without privilege —

one day, we will build hospitals where dignity is not sold,

where life is not a luxury,

where healing belongs to everyone.

Today, I am just a daughter praying for her mother.

Tomorrow, I will be a woman who turns this pain into change.

If your mother is alive, do not wait.

Hold her.

Call her.

Tell her she is your home.

Mothers do not need the world.

They are the world.

And to my mother, if somewhere inside your silence you can feel me:

Live.

Come back.

I love you — and your life is my life.