150 Weeks Without Mum:

Grief Taught Me Who Belongs at My Table

Grief has educated me to protect my heart, to guard my soul

and to celebrate my victories only with those

who have earned a place in my heart 

Ma, 150 weeks since I heard your voice calling my nickname, felt your arms around me, or saw that spark in your eyes, and I have walked through every one of these 150 weeks with you in my broken heart, with your story on my lips, and with your memory echoing in every single moment, but this journey is not just about your sudden loss, it is about absence, not just yours, but also of those, I once thought would be there for me, the ones who vanished, when my world collapsed, when I needed presence, I got distance, when I needed words, I got silence, as grief has not just showed me what is gone, it also revealed who never really stood beside me, and walking with me through the storm

Ma, in those 150 weeks, I have learned, painfully, the damn difference between those who watched me fall and those who held me up, not just who sent condolences, or who were at the memorial, but who stayed, who checked in when the world moved on, who sat with my silence, who listened without needing me to explain, and more excruciatingly, grief showed me who did not, because not everyone who claps for me in the light is willing to sit with me in the dark, since I was mourning the devastating loss of you, I did not need perfect words, I did not need solutions, I just needed someone to stand quietly at my side, not solve it, not rush it, just witness it, I am grateful that a few people did   

Ma, after 150 weeks of learning how to live again, of finding moments of light again, as my life started blooming in the wreckage now, and I see those people circling back, asking me to reconnect, wanting to celebrate how far I have come, to toast my resilience, and to bask in the light I clawed back from the dark, but let me say it plainly, their phoney reemergence felt like rain at a drought, too little, too late, when the crops had already burned, grief is not a performance, it is not a tragedy for spectators to dip in and out of when it suits them, it is a solitary, brutal, sacred journey, to those, who were absent, stay absent, my pain was not their concern then, my triumph is not their privilege now 

Ma, I have not just survived the worst pain of losing you in the past 150 weeks, I have built a new life from it, the table I am setting now in the aftermath of your unexpected departure, in the light of hard won victories, is sacred, and there are only seats that reserved for those who truly know the cost of my survival, the ones who were there, even when I did not have the energy to ask, they know who they are, as they are the ones who held my hand when I was breaking, who let me scream, or sit in wordless grief without trying to fix it, who helped me keep going, when it felt impossible, who cried with me, who still say your name, honour your legacy, those are my people, and my chosen family

Ma, I know who earned their front-row seats to my victories, but I also noticed, who walked away when grief knocked at my door and moved in 150 weeks ago, the ones who sent one single text “let me know, if you need anything”, and then disappeared, who muted my tears and distanced themselves from discomfort, who could not hold space for my sorrow, when it grew inconvenient, who made excuses for their absence when I needed them most, who changed the subject, when the heaviness of my ache became too much, who expected me to move on after a few months, who avoided the messiness of my grief, but the doors they closed during my pain, do not reopen for my celebration 

Ma, not everyone deserves access to the new version of me that was born through pain of the past 150 weeks, as I slowly reclaim myself, there is space only for those who were real to me, when the road was steep, the path was lonely, or I could barely put one foot in front of the other, earn the right to what I now share, the rest, who failed the test, I release them, as they do not get to sip joy from the same cup that once held my tears, they do not get to applaud my trophy when they ignored the blood on the floor, they do not get to hear music, when they covered their ears to my cries, my successes are survival stories, not invitations to those who refused to sit in the war when I was broken 

Ma, 150 weeks without you, has taught me the sanctity of my heart, the cost of silence, the truth in absence, the beauty of genuine presence, it has cleared the noise, and showed me who belongs at my table, I will never apologise for protecting this space, so I refuse to pour my love into relationships that only flow one way, I refuse to let people who abandoned me in my darkest hours, who skipped the hardest chapters of my story, now claim a seat at the happy ending, anyone that reappears when the sun is shining, is not someone I trust when the storms return, because you gave me life, grief gave me clarity, it is the gift of surviving what almost broke me, I choose who witnesses my rebirth