I Never Looked Back — The Last Day I Saw My Mother and the Regrets I Will Carry Forever

The day I regret the most and will never forget.

The day I wish I looked at her.

I hugged her.

I told her I love her.

I told her she is the best mom in the world.

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That morning, my mom followed me to the place where I would take a bike to the park. She carried my bag on her head.

My mom, carrying my bag. Unbelievable.

She was a typical African mother, the kind that walks in front while her children carry the load. Heavy or not, we carried it. That was how it had always been. But that morning, she carried mine, and I followed behind with just a small bag. I felt uncomfortable and tried to take it from her, but she refused and held on.

I didn’t fully understand it then. I do now. She was happy. So happy that after all those years, her daughter was finally going to university, and she wanted to carry that moment herself. She didn’t want to let go.

When we got to the place where I would board the bike, I climbed on and adjusted myself and my luggage. But I didn’t look at her. I was either looking down or to the side, anywhere but her face, even though I knew she was looking at me.

Even when the bike started moving, I knew she was still there, standing and watching.

I didn’t look back.

Because I didn’t want to cry.

Because I didn’t want her to see my tears.

That’s how we grew up. We didn’t show emotions, whether we were sad or happy. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t do it that day.

But now, I wish I had.

Because that was the last day I saw my mom.

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Before that day, life was very different.

After secondary school, I was like every other science student in Nigeria. I wanted to study medicine or nursing. I wrote my first JAMB exam and scored 194. But I believed so much in prayer. I told myself that with God, nothing was impossible, and that I would still gain admission into medicine with that score.

It didn’t happen.

The pain was so much that I couldn’t bring myself to write JAMB the following year. By the third year, I tried again and scored 234. I chose the University of Lagos and started preparing for the POST-UTME. Everything felt promising. I was hopeful again.

Then, on the day of the exam, everything went wrong.

My computer system had issues. No matter which option I tapped, it kept selecting only option B. It sounded like an excuse, but it was the truth. On top of that, I desperately needed to use the bathroom. The exam hall was overcrowded and disorganized, and I was too scared to step out and risk losing my chance. So I stayed, uncomfortable, pressed, distracted, and trying to focus while everything worked against me.

The results came out. I scored 5 out of 40.

I broke down. This time, I had truly believed it was my breakthrough.

Everywhere I went after that, the question followed me. “When will you gain admission?” Watching my peers return to school for the holidays made it worse, a constant reminder that I was behind, that something was wrong with me, that it seemed like God had forgotten me.

Even at a gathering at our mosque, in a rare moment when I had forgotten my pain and was just dancing and laughing, someone walked up to me and said, “By God’s grace, you will gain admission too.” She meant well. But those words landed on my deepest wound, and I went home that night to cry.

Eventually, I decided I needed a different direction. If one path wasn’t opening, I had to find another. I wanted to learn fashion designing, a skill I could build a life with. But my mom refused. She had big dreams for me: university, a good job, a future that made her proud. The idea of her child learning a trade was not something she had imagined.

That was the first time I ever argued with my mom. I said things I shouldn’t have said. Words that hurt. Words I still wish I could take back.

Eventually, she agreed. I still don’t fully know why. Maybe she didn’t want me to feel stuck. Maybe she didn’t want me to misunderstand her love. But even in that disagreement, she showed me who she was.

She was the first to bring me fabric to practice with, and the first to proudly wear what I made, even when the stitching wasn’t good.

She wore it like it was the finest dress she had ever owned.

She was a very good mother.

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Three more years passed. And then I finally got admission.

It was one of the happiest days of my mother’s life.

She heard the news and came running to my workplace barefoot, all the way from her shop nearby. She hugged me, smiled, and said congratulations. I can count on one hand the times my mom hugged me in my life, but that one, I remember clearly. It felt so special that I didn’t even know how to respond.

But deep down, that admission didn’t carry the same meaning for me anymore. I had already started building a different plan. I wanted to buy my own sewing machine. I wanted to establish myself. I wanted to start earning. I knew going to school would change everything, and all the money I had saved would go into it. I didn’t come from a family where money was easy.

But my mom wanted it.

And because of her, I said yes.

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The morning I left for the University of Ilorin was the morning everything changed.

I have already told you how it ended. Her carrying my bag. Me boarding that bike. Me never looking back.

What I haven’t told you yet is everything that came after.

When I got to school, she called me every day, especially in the mornings. She always asked how I was doing. I was the child she was closest to. She told me everything she was going through, what was worrying her. I would always tell her not to worry, to focus on herself and her children.

But after those calls, in the quiet of my room, I would say to myself: I need to make it. I need to succeed. I need to take my mom out of this life.

I wanted to give her a good life. That was the plan.

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A few weeks before I lost her, she called during the Ileya celebration.

She asked how I was doing. I told her it had been a while since I had eaten meat and that I missed home. She told me she was going to send some foodstuff in a week or two and would include meat.

I was so happy, I told my friend, I was counting down the days.

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A few days before I lost her, I was walking back from my first-year final exams.

A man was selling handcrafted frames by the roadside. One of them read, “Best Mom in the World.” I didn’t have money on me that day, but I made a mental note to come back and buy it.

In my head, I had everything planned. When I got home for the holidays, I would kneel in front of her. I would hug her. I would say, “I love you.” I would give her the frame and make her feel special in a way I never had before.

I couldn’t wait.

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Then she called, and I told her I wasn’t fine. I told her I needed money. When she suggested I call my dad, I refused firmly and angrily. I said I would never speak to him again, I said he didn’t care about us, didn’t care about her and I said I would never ask him for anything.

Then I said to her, “If you have money, you can send it to me.”

That call is one of the deepest regrets I carry.

I wish I had just said, “Mommy, I’m fine,” even if I wasn’t.

Because now I feel like I sent her away with worry in her heart. That her daughter was not okay. That her children were struggling. I made her worry in what turned out to be her final days, and I will never stop wishing I could undo that.

I knew she was sick. But I thought it was the usual sickness, the kind she would rest from and recover. I didn’t know it was the one that would take her.

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Two days after my mom died, I found out through a WhatsApp status.

I was scrolling through my phone when I saw her picture on someone’s story. I stopped. I was confused. Why would someone post her photo when it wasn’t her birthday?

I kept looking and that was how I found out.

My family hadn’t told me because I was in the middle of my exams. They were trying to protect me. They didn’t think I could handle it. They were right but I still wish they had told me.

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There are so many things I wish I could undo.

Every time she called to check on me, I complained. I said the money she was sending wasn’t enough. I argued. I got angry sometimes. But she was doing everything alone, no support, no help, running a small business that barely turned a profit, sometimes borrowing money just to feed us.

She gave what she had and I made her feel like it wasn’t enough.

I wish I had just said thank you. Even once.

And when I was working, on the days she asked to borrow a little money from me, I complained then too. I argued.

Now she is gone.

Even if I make all the money in this world, she cannot enjoy it. She cannot see it. She cannot touch it. She cannot benefit from it.

She is not here to reap the fruit of everything she planted.

What is the point?

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I have so many regrets. Too many to hold sometimes.

And I know I cannot turn back time.

But if there is another life, if such a thing exists, I want to be her daughter again. I want to be her third child again. I want her to live a peaceful life this time, free from struggle and pain.

I want to look her in the face on that morning and not look away.

I want to hug her first.

I want to tell her I love her while she can still hear it.

If this story stayed with you, please share it. Someone out there may need the reminder to turn around and look at the people they love while they still can.