Testament of Pain

There is a weight in my chest that hasn’t lightened in years. Sometimes, it feels like this pain has become my most loyal companion. It doesn’t matter how many seasons pass, how many faces I meet, or how many mornings I pretend to start afresh—this ache clings to me like a second skin.

People often say that time heals all wounds. I used to believe them. I really did. But as days turned into months, and months into years, I discovered that some wounds never close. They scab over, but underneath, they still bleed.

I remember the day everything changed as vividly as if it were happening again. My mother had been sick for months. Cancer doesn’t announce itself with a dramatic flourish; it seeps into your life quietly, stealing a little more every day until you can’t remember what life looked like before. I spent countless afternoons in the sterile corridors of the hospital, staring blankly at the pale blue walls while the nurses moved past me like ghosts.

No one teaches you how to prepare for loss. There isn’t a manual that tells you how to hold on to the hand that once held yours, knowing that in a few moments it will turn cold forever. That day, I sat by her bed, her breathing shallow and labored. My hand covered hers, and I tried to memorize the warmth. My mind screamed for someone to save her, for some miracle to happen. But miracles were never for people like us.

When her chest fell still, the silence in the room roared louder than any sound I had ever heard. I think a part of me died with her.

After the funeral, everyone returned to their lives. They came to my house, said the usual words—“She’s in a better place,” “Be strong,” “Time will heal you.” They had no idea that every sentence felt like a knife. I didn’t want to be strong. I didn’t want time. I just wanted her back.

Days blurred into each other. I would lie awake at night, staring at the cracks on the ceiling, tracing them like a map of everything that had broken inside me. I stopped answering calls. I stopped meeting friends. Grief hollowed me out, and I didn’t have the strength to pretend anymore.

People misunderstand pain. They think it looks like screaming, breaking things, falling apart in public. But true pain is quiet. It’s the heaviness in your bones when you try to get out of bed. It’s the hollow in your chest when you realize you’ve gone an entire day without speaking a word. It’s waking up and feeling disappointed that you woke up at all.

Somewhere along the way, the numbness became my refuge. If I didn’t feel, I couldn’t hurt. So, I built walls higher than anyone could climb, convinced myself I didn’t need help, that I could carry the burden alone. I didn’t realize I was turning into a shadow of the person I once was.

Months later, something shifted. I can’t pinpoint what it was—maybe it was the afternoon I finally dared to open the box of my mother’s things, maybe it was the way the sunlight fell across the floor, warm and golden, reminding me that the world kept spinning even if I wasn’t ready to move with it. I found her old letters, yellowed with time, the handwriting familiar and comforting.

One letter began with:
“If you’re reading this, it means I’m not there to say goodbye.”

I broke. For the first time since she died, I allowed myself to cry, really cry, without shame or resistance. And in that moment, something in me softened.

Grief doesn’t disappear. It becomes a part of you, woven into every memory, every smile, every heartbeat. It transforms you, sometimes into someone unrecognizable. But in its own terrible way, it also reveals your strength.

Pain taught me that it’s okay to be broken, that you don’t have to pretend to be okay when you’re not. It taught me that healing isn’t about forgetting—it’s about learning to carry the love and the loss together.

Today, I still carry my pain. I probably always will. But it no longer feels like a chain around my neck. It’s more like a scar—tender, but proof that I survived. And maybe that’s the only victory any of us can hope for: to keep breathing, to keep living, even when it hurts.

Because no matter how dark it gets, the dawn still comes. And sometimes, that is enough.