It’s so unfortunate that a few hours after celebrating my birthday, my Mom bade us farewell. It pains me to feel like she died after giving birth to me. The best woman in the world… the woman I love the most… the woman who nurtured and loved me the way no other person could and would… left. She left for good… never to return. But she will forever remain in my heart and mind.

Mom gave me everything she was capable of providing. She gave me all she could except for one thing… my request that she never breathe her last without me by her side. How hard I tried to motivate her to be healthy enough, so I could bring her to South Korea.

How I wished that it was my face she saw last before she closed those eyes that watched over me for countless nights when I was a helpless child. I wanted to say that the last words she heard before she could no longer hear any sound were my “I love you, Mama!”

Whenever I travel down memory lane and revisit the remotest event in my life, I always remember waking from sleep one night with my mom carrying me while she was walking. I could not recall where that was, but I knew I was in my mom’s caring and loving arms. I wish I could wrap my arms around her and hug her when she was at her weakest. I regret I couldn’t do it, for I was hundreds of miles away.

For me, it was a matter of choosing between dying in sadness for losing my beloved Mom or bearing the pain of seeing her in that vegetative state, in obvious pain, and with both hands tied to prevent her from accidentally removing the NG tubes through which we fed her.

I love you, Mama!