Okay, this is probably stupid, but it's 2 AM and I can’t sleep. Again. It’s not a big deal, really, just… something that keeps turning over in my head. I’m an old man now, well, retired anyway. Spent the last twenty years in Portugal, teaching, writing, living the good life, as they say. Sun, good food, no snow. It was exactly what I’d always wanted. A quiet life, full of books and sunshine. My wife, bless her, loved it too. We built a beautiful little existence for ourselves, far from… everything. And that’s the rub, isn’t it? Far from everything. Far from my mother. She’s gone now, passed away a few months ago. And what I can’t shake, what’s eating at me, is the image of her getting older, smaller, more fragile, and me… not being there. Not really. I’d call, of course. Every Sunday. Same time, same questions. “How are you, darling? Everything alright? Is the heating on?” And she’d say, “Oh, I’m fine, dear. Just fine.” Always fine. Until she wasn’t. I remember one call, maybe five years ago. My sister, the one who lived ten minutes away and yet always seemed to be too busy for anything beyond a drive-by visit, mentioned, almost as an aside, that Mum had fallen. Again. “Oh, she just tripped on the rug, you know how she is, a bit wobbly.” Wobbly. My mother, who used to walk miles every day, who could out-garden anyone. Wobbly. And I felt this cold dread. I asked Mum about it on our next call. She brushed it off. “Oh, just a silly thing, nothing to worry about, darling.” She always called me darling. It was her way. I flew back a few times, of course. For Christmas. For a big birthday. Each time, I’d see the changes. The slight stoop, the slower gait, the way her eyes seemed a little more distant. I’d try to help. Fix a wobbly banister, get a grab bar installed in the shower. Small things. Practical things. But I always had a return ticket. Always had my lovely, quiet life waiting for me in the sun. And a part of me, a big, ugly part, was relieved to go back. Relieved to escape the growing weight of her frailty, the subtle signs that she was slipping away. The last few years were the worst. The calls got harder. She’d repeat herself. Ask the same questions. Forget what we’d talked about five minutes prior. And I’d find myself getting… impatient. Internally, of course. Never out loud. But that little flicker of annoyance, that frustration at having to go over the same ground, it’s a rotten thing to admit. I’d remind myself, *she’s your mother, she can’t help it*. But the feeling was there. And then the guilt would wash over me, heavy and suffocating. My sister finally called me, not for a casual chat, but with that tone in her voice. The tone that says, “This is serious.” Mum was in the hospital. Another fall. This time, a broken hip. And then the decision. The care home. My sister handled it. I sent money. I called. I made all the right noises. But I wasn’t there. I wasn’t the one going through her things, selling the house, dealing with the endless paperwork, the doctors, the nurses, the social workers. I just wasn’t. When I flew over for the funeral, she was… tiny. Like a bird. It was all a bit of a blur, to be honest. But there was this moment, after everyone had left the house, and I was just sitting in her old armchair, looking at the empty fireplace. And it hit me, not like a wave, but like a stone in my gut. I had chosen my life. I had chosen my sunshine and my books and my quiet. And that choice meant I wasn’t there for hers. For her ending. It’s not like she ever guilt-tripped me. Not once. She always said, “You live your life, darling. Don’t you worry about me.” But that just makes it worse, doesn’t it? Her quiet acceptance. Her never asking for anything. Because I knew, I absolutely knew, that if I had been there, truly *there*, it would have been different. Maybe not better, maybe it would have been awful in a different way, but I would have been present. Instead, I got the edited highlights. The Sunday calls. The holiday visits. And the rest… the slow decline, the fear, the confusion… I wasn’t there for that. And I’ll never forgive myself for it. Never. This is just… what it is. And I hate it. I hate that I feel this way, this profound, useless regret. It’s utterly pointless, but it’s real. And it burns.