No reply.
I walked upstairs.
The first room I opened was a child’s bedroom.
A small bed.
A teddy bear.
And a framed photograph of a little girl I had never seen before.
I froze.
Had I become a grandmother without even knowing it?
Confused and trembling, I moved to the second room.
Its walls were covered with paintings.
All of me.
Me holding Salma as a child.
Me at her graduation.
Me smiling in our old kitchen.
Tears filled my eyes.
Then I noticed a sentence written beneath one of the paintings:
“I miss my mother every single day… but I’m afraid to let her see me like this.”
My heart began to race.
I hurried to the last room.
And when I opened the door…
I stopped breathing.
There she was.
My daughter.
Sitting in a wheelchair.
Her face was pale.
But her smile…BW
It was the same smile I had loved all my life.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she whispered,
“I’m sorry, Mom. I had an accident years ago and lost the ability to walk. I didn’t want you to see me weak… So I stayed away and only sent money.”
I rushed to her and wrapped my arms around her.
Crying, I said:
“I never needed your money, Salma… I only needed you.”
And for the first time in ten years,
Mother and daughter cried together,
Not because of pain…
But because love had finally found its way home.
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