People always say grief comes in waves. For me, it came like silence.

After twelve years of being my mum’s carer, the day she died wasn’t loud. It wasn’t dramatic. It was quiet. Still. The house that had echoed with her breathing, her coughing, her gentle calls for water or warmth—fell silent. I remember standing in that stillness, holding her hand, and feeling completely unanchored.

I was 29 when her health started to decline. She had diabetes, arthritis, early dementia creeping in. I became her carer slowly—at first helping with her medication, then cooking, then bathing her. Over the years, it became full-time. She needed me for everything. But the thing is, I needed her too.

Mum wasn’t just my responsibility—she was my best friend, my anchor, my softness in a hard world. She had a quiet strength. She never complained. Even on the worst days, she’d look at me and say, “Tu mere layi sab kuch hai, Vidya.” You’re everything to me, Vidya.

We didn’t have support. No fancy equipment. No regular visits from professionals who understood what it meant to care across cultures. My mum didn’t speak much English, and I had to explain her pain to doctors, advocate for her again and again, make sure she was seen, not just managed.

There were days I broke. When I cried in the bathroom because I didn’t know how I’d do it another day. I lost friends. I lost sleep. I missed weddings, holidays, job interviews. But I never missed a moment with her. I chose her. Every time.

And then—she was gone. Just like that.

People expected me to feel relieved. “You can rest now,” they said. “You can get your life back.” What they didn’t understand was—she was my life. My routine, my reason to keep going. My mum gave my days meaning. Without her, the days blurred. I didn’t know how to cook just for one person. I didn’t know what to do with my hands if they weren’t helping her.

I grieved in layers. For her. For the version of me who was her carer. For all the things we didn’t get to do together. For the things I still want to tell her.

I kept thinking: Who cares for the carer after the caring ends?

There were no bereavement groups that spoke our language—literally or emotionally. I didn’t need textbook sympathy. I needed someone to look me in the eye and say, “I see what you gave. I see how much it cost you. And I see how much she mattered.”

That’s why spaces like Dil Sey Dil Tak matter. Because people like me need somewhere to bring our full stories—not just the end, but the years before it. The love. The exhaustion. The beauty. The breakdowns. The bond.

My mum’s gone, but she’s with me. In every cup of tea I make just the way she liked. In every sunset I watch because she always said, “Look, beta—God paints the sky for us.”

I loved her. With everything. And I always will.

Fifty-two years. That’s how long I was married to her.

And still, I never said the words. Not once.

Not “I love you.” Not “Thank you.” Not “I’m sorry.” Not in the way she deserved.

We were always too busy. First, the kids. Then the grandkids. I was working, always out. She was home, running the house, keeping everything stitched together — the meals, the bills, the birthday presents, the traditions. And me… I found reasons to stay out longer. To avoid another argument. To have just a little peace.

Truth is, we argued a lot. Silly things mostly. What to cook. What I forgot to do. What she said that I didn’t like. Misunderstandings piling up like laundry neither of us wanted to fold. We got used to it — the noise, the distance. But under all of it, we were still... us.

She knew how I liked my tea. I knew when her back was acting up just by the way she breathed. We never said the soft things. We showed them — in the way we made space for each other to exist.

But now she’s gone. Just like that.

There was no final moment. No long goodbye. No time to say the things I’d stored up for “someday.” She passed while I was out getting milk. Ordinary day. Ordinary errand. Came back, and she was gone.

I keep replaying it all. Had I done this, had I not said that… what if I’d just held her hand more often? What if I had told her, even once, that she was everything? Would she have left knowing how much she meant?

People say she knew. They say, “Winston, she knew.” But I needed her to hear it. Out loud. From me.

Now the house is too quiet. Her side of the bed feels untouched. I talk to her sometimes, just in case she can still hear me. I tell her things I should’ve said years ago.

“I love you.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t better at showing it.”
“I miss you.”
“I wish I had one more minute with you — not to change everything, just to say what mattered.”

Grief’s a strange thing. It sharpens the blur. You start seeing what you missed while you were rushing through life.

I don’t want pity. I want people to learn from me. Tell them: say the thing. Don’t wait for the perfect moment. It may never come.

Tell them: love is in the messy years, the routines, the arguments, the long silences. But don’t let that stop you from saying it.

Because the only thing heavier than loss… is regret.

I was never the good son. Not by anyone’s standards.

I got expelled from school. Picked fights in the street. Caused arguments that split the house down the middle. I cussed at my naani—the woman who raised me after my mum left when I was just a kid. I broke her heart more times than I can count.

And yet... it was her who stood by me. Always her.

My mum wasn’t soft. She raised me with fire. Shouted, scolded, slapped sense into me when I crossed lines—especially when I clashed with my sister. She didn’t spare the rod, no. But she also didn’t let the world touch me. Not even with a whisper.

People would come to her with stories about me—things I’d done, trouble I’d caused. She’d shut them down mid-sentence. “He’s my son. I’ll deal with him.” She covered my shame like a chaddar wraps around you in your worst hour—when you’re bleeding, freezing, barely holding on.

That’s what she did. She covered me. Every time.

The day I got stabbed, I thought I was going to die. The pain was blinding, everything loud and then suddenly distant. I was in surgery, fading in and out, when I heard her voice—loud, panicked, fighting the nurses to get to me. And then, softer:
"Don’t worry, son. You’ll be alright."

She sat by my bed for days. Never left. Fed me with her hands like I was a child again. Didn’t even say “I told you so.” Just watched me. Like she knew something in me was changing.

But I changed too late.

Now I visit her grave. Sometimes I just stand there. Sometimes I talk. Sometimes I cry. No one sees it. I don’t let them. But there, in front of her, I let it go.

I say, “I’m sorry, Ma. I was hard. I know.”

I think of all the times I made her life difficult—and all the times she protected me anyway. With no thanks. No applause. Just love. Fierce, messy, quiet love.

Now I wonder: who will shelter me like that again?
Who will fight the world for me and still fight me if I needed it?

The grave doesn’t answer back. But sometimes the wind shifts, and I feel something wrap around me. A memory. A whisper. A presence.

Maybe she’s still covering me.
Even now.

They say children are flowers.
If that’s true, I’ve planted three… and buried three.

My third child died of a hole in the heart. Just like the others, gone too soon. Each time, I prayed, let this one live. Each time, I whispered into soft ears, please stay. Each time, I hoped the ending would be different.

But fate doesn’t bargain with mothers.

I raised them all with trembling hands. With eyes that never rested. Always watching. Always worrying. One fever, one cough, one moment of silence too long—and my whole body would stiffen. Because I knew. I always knew. Something could go wrong. Again.

My love for them wasn’t ordinary. It was protective. Desperate. Like trying to hold a flame in the wind. I dressed them, fed them, prayed over them like sacred offerings. They were my joy. My test. My reason.

When I lost the third… I didn’t scream. I didn’t collapse. I just folded. Quietly. Like a page being turned without warning. There’s a stillness that comes when grief isn’t new—it’s familiar. It wears your name.

People don’t know what to say to a mother like me. They change the subject. They say “at least...” or “God’s will.” I nod. I forgive them. They’ve never had to wrap a baby in a shroud.

But I remember every name. Every breath. Every smile.
They lived. Even if only for a moment.
They mattered.

I ask God, softly, when will it end? Not life. The breaking. The loss.
I don’t ask why anymore. I just ask for strength.

And yet—I keep going.
Because even a broken heart keeps beating.
Because somewhere in the quiet, I still hear their laughter.
Because love doesn’t die, even if the body does.

I raised them like flowers.
And when I return to the soil myself, I hope I find them there—blooming.
Waiting. Whole.

This is not a war story. This is a grief story.
This is trauma with a heartbeat.

My name is Hatam. I lost my sister and her two young daughters in Gaza — not to war, but to a missile that turned our home into rubble. A so-called precision strike, launched from a screen in a room far away.
They called it defence. I call it destruction.

One second we were together. The next, I was pulling bodies from dust.
Now, I live with the silence. With the memory of their voices. With the smell of smoke that never really leaves your skin.

But it doesn’t stop there.
Every day I watch it happen again — on my phone, on the TV, in the pit of my stomach. Another blast. Another father screaming. Another child with no name left to say.
I see my pain repeated in real time.
And the world watches like it’s content.

The bombs you watch on screen — the ones that thud and flash like some military movie — they’re not just "strikes." They’re the end of someone’s everything.

So when you see that bomb drop, don’t scroll past.
Don’t say “it’s complicated.”
Don’t turn it into numbers.
Think. Really think.
Then think again.

Because under that dust is a child who had a name. A laugh. A future.
And someone like me — still alive, still broken, still asking: who else will carry this grief?

That’s why I came to Blossom's: Dil Sey Dil Tak Bereavement Café.

This place isn’t just for the quiet kind of mourning — it’s for grief that explodes and leaves no map. It’s for those of us who’ve lost people to things no one should ever have to survive. Bombs. War. Injustice. Silence.

Here, I don’t have to explain myself.
Here, I can breathe again.
I can say their names.
I can cry and not be told to move on.

In this space, my trauma isn’t “too much.” It’s seen. It’s held.
Dil Sey Dil Tak — from heart to heart — that’s what this is. A place where grief isn’t hidden, it’s honoured.

So if you’re watching this violence from afar — don’t look away.
If you’re carrying loss of your own — don’t carry it alone.

Come sit with us. Listen. Speak. Rage. Remember.
There’s room for your grief here.
There’s room for mine, too.