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I didn't tell her what happened over the past few days or where I was. What's the point? Why should she worry unnecessarily? What could she do being so far away?

My cousin (mum's youngest sister's daughter...) called on Line to wish my happy new year. We talked a bit, and I tried hard to suppress my feelings. She said the other day, on 27 December, she felt so sad because she was remembered how it all began last year. The emergency call she made to me from the hospital. Trying to calm me on the phone while at the same time relaying news of mum's failing health and imminent surgery. She remembered how shocked I was, she remembered the pictures she sent to me of mum. She still has this one minute video I made for mum just before I boarded the plane, in which I told mum to hang on there, in which I told mum out loud for the first time perhaps, that I love her. I wasn't sure if after I land, mum would still be there. And sometimes if you don't say something from the bottom of your heart, and if you keep on being afraid of feeling ashamed or too touchy-feely, you might lose the opportunity to do so forever.

The fear and anxiety were overwhelming, and my cousin, who was the first to greet me as I rushed into the hospital, who was there throughout the final six months of mum's life, knew perhaps best what happened and what I went. She was there, she saw the suffering of mum, she saw my suffering and desperation. My cousin saw mum's death approaching, she cried and felt sorry that she cried because I never once shed a tear in front of her. It deeply affected her, but she felt so sorry for me. She also saw how tortured I was trying to grapple with the reality that my ex moved on, she saw how tortures I was trying to resist any temptations to reach out to him so he could have his time and new found happiness.

I thanked my cousin, again and again with such gratitude and such humbleness I could have cried if I weren't trying to suppress my emotions by biting hard on my lower lips. I feel indebted to her, to so many people who have been there and carried me through (yes, even to, or especially to, my ex, who has been there for so long...)

"Be strong, and take good care of yourself..." She said at the end.

This morning, I woke up and saw a message she sent me that made me cry as soon as I read it.

"I feel you are so lonely!"

I tried to hide it, to hide in the world, but the loneliness and hurt still shines through.