Mother, forgive me.

"Grandma wants to see you, Greg", my mom told me over the phone, her voice was trembling and tired.

I hadn't had a chance to visit her at all, but last night she asked my mother to call me. "Maybe it's, time, Bobo. I think you'll regret it if you don't go." my mom told me. I said I would do my best.

The twelve-hour drive wasn't the problem. Work was the problem. I would have to miss at least three days. Yes, a normal person would fly out, two hours in a flying tin and tah-dah, there you are! However, for someone like me, who couldn't step onto a plane to save his own life, this kind of convenient transportation method is never an option. That's precisely why have only been to Canada and Mexico. And that's about it.

The next day, a breezy spring evening, I was by grandma's bedside, holding pencil and paper to write a letter to her mother.

"Write it all down, son. I have no time to repeat it...", grandma told me in a weak, fading voice. She had been in this hospice for three months, waiting for her last day.

When I was five I was amazed by your beauty and I believed you knew everything about every thing. You always had the answers, and would never dare to question them. I liked the smell of your neck, there was no smell like that in the world, and you let me smell it whenever I wanted. When you tucked me into bed, you'd swaddle me like a baby and sing me a song.

When I was ten my dad was supposed to come home from the war, but he didn't. And people told me I had to be strong for you, because you had a lot to worry about. I had to be good, behave, not bring trouble to you – that's what I thought it all meant. So I was a good girl. A girl who takes herself to school. A girl who remembers to pay the electric bill and to buy groceries for the family while my friends were talking about boys, movies and music at recess – that's also when I did the homework I couldn't do at home because I had to babysit for you.

When I was fifteen I heard you speak so proudly about my behavior at home and school to your friends and I that should have felt good. But it felt disgusting instead, because to my face, when nobody was around for you to impress, you'd only have criticism and judgement for me. "So you've got good grades? What else should I expect?", you told me countless times, without ever even looking in my direction. You had other things to worry about, and I was never the first one of them. I wanted to be.

When I was twenty I swore I would do differently. I promised myself I would never become you. I declared to the world how your mistakes were stupid and how they could have easily been avoided, because being a mother is not rocket science, for fox' sake! You just have to pay attention to your child and her emotional needs, provide them with good education for real life, with tools to bring the best out of them. If you can't do at least that, you should just not be a mother. If you don't want to change your life to be apropriate to children, you shouldn't have them. If you don't have any money to provide for them, you should not put yourself in a situation of having to be a provider. You see, you made all the wrong choices, mother. I turned out to be fine, but I deserved a better parent. I deserved a mother who wasn't depressed, I deserved a mother who wasn't desperate to find love so much so that she forgot to ask me how my day went.

When I was twenty-five I had my first child and I asked myself how the fuck did you manage to do that alone? I don't remember much from that time. It's all just a blurr. I think they call it a mom brain.

A nurse came in to check on grandma. She wanted some water, and after struggling to hold the cup herself, she asked me to help her. I held the paper cup close to her mouth and held her chin – the skin on her face was so thin, I though I would accidentally rip it with my uncut nails which she always bugged me about. She took tiny sips, like a weak baby bird who hit a window, taking breaks in between to rest her head on the pillow.

When she felt ready, she pointed at my notepad and ordered me to continue.

When I was thirty I got diagnosed with cancer. When you get cancer, people tell you all sorts of things. Many of those things are completely unnecessary, and often they're blatantly offensive. From "Yeah, I know three different people who died of this same type of cancer" at my sister's baby shower, to "You need a positive mindset", and even to "It's probably because of the hard water in your shower. I have been using this filter for two weeks and have been cured from my psoriasis ever since the first shower!". Oh, and some people straight up star weeping like a toddler – gunk coming out of every hole on their face. But a few people do say things that sound outrageous in the beggining, and then starts to make sense at one point. Someone once asked me if I was holding any feelings of resentment for someone, to which I said "hm, I don't think so..." But I did, mother, I resented you, and I wasn't big enough to change that.

When I was forty I realized time goes faster as you get older, even faster when have children. Mother, I hoped we would both live long enough for me to grow to forgive you completely; and even more to be able to tell you so. And how long would it be until I could say "I'm sorry. I'm actually the one who needs forgiveness – for being ungrateful, for judging you harshly, for only seeing your flaws and how they affected me without regard for your struggles and fears as a human being who isn't perfect, but tries to do no harm."?

When I realized I was eighty, I hoped I would die sooner than later, my body ached in every possible place and no drug could ever cease the pain for more than a few minutes. I was finished and I was unsatisfied by many of my actions, looking for comfort in the little good I might have possibly done.

I was never able to find faith. I watched people who had found it and asked myself "What is it like to believe something is going to save you in the end? It must be nice..." Maybe I just didn't deserve to be saved, and since I knew that, there was no point in believeing; maybe the people who do have a creed believe in themselves first, and believe they ought to be saved. No god or goddess ever appeared to me. No miracles have ever happened anywhere I went. But today I prayed to every god I could think of that you would swaddle me tenderly, and sing me a song until I fell asleep forever."

She let go of my hand, her own hand she rested on her chest, on top of the other one; and closed her eyes. Her breathing was slow, so I waited there until she exhaled for the last time.

I drove straight to my mother's house and cried like a child. She read the letter and tears ran down her face, all the way down to her neck – she wasn't sobbing, but a waterfall cascaded out of her eyes, and looked like they would never stop. I had never seeing that type of cry. Until then she was keeping it together, for it's the natural course of life to lose your parents as an adult. But after reading the letter, something switched inside her. She looked at me, but didn't see me there, she was talking to herself.

"I didn't grow up fast enough to tell her I was sorry, too." she said.