Lost Numbers, Broken Connections: A Mother’s Day Never the Same

“Mom, how many times do I have to tell you?!” I slammed my phone on the kitchen table so hard the screen flickered and went black. The echo bounced off the faded wallpaper and the chipped ceramic tiles, sending a shiver through the house. My hands trembled as I stared at her. “Every single day, you do this! Every damn day!”

Mom—Halina—clutched her ancient flip phone, the kind with real buttons, the numbers rubbed off from years of use. She looked so small in that oversized sweater Dad had left behind, her knuckles white around the plastic. “I—I’m sorry, Katie. I didn’t mean to. I just…”

“You forgot his number again.” My voice cracked. I hated how it sounded: sharp, accusing. But I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop seeing Dad’s face in every corner of this house, hearing his voice in the silence between us. “It’s been a year, and you still can’t remember. How is that even possible?”

She shrunk further into herself, lips trembling. “You don’t understand. It’s not just the number. I—sometimes things just… slip away.”

I turned away, blinking back tears, angry at myself for being angry, furious at her for making me the adult, the one who had to remember everything. “I’m going to be late for work,” I muttered, grabbing my cold coffee. “Just—write it down somewhere. Please.”

But even as I said it, I knew she had dozens of sticky notes, all with numbers and reminders, taped to the fridge, the cabinets, even the bathroom mirror. None of it helped. Every morning, she’d ask for Dad’s old cell number, the one she used to call him when she was running late or when she wanted him to pick up milk. Now, she called it just to hear the disconnected tone.

I worked as a nurse at the local hospital, and every day I saw people dealing with loss in ways I couldn’t begin to fix. But here at home, I was helpless. I watched Mom drift through her routines like a ghost. The grief counselor said memory loss was normal—part of the process, especially for older adults. But what about me? Where was my process?

That night, as rain tapped against the window, I heard her in the kitchen, rifling through the junk drawer. I padded downstairs, heart heavy.

“Mom, what are you doing?”

She jumped, caught in the yellow lamplight. Tears streamed down her face. “I can’t find it, Katie. I can’t find anything. I keep waiting for him to come home.”

And just like that, my anger fell away. I crossed the kitchen and wrapped my arms around her. She sobbed into my shoulder, her body shaking with the weight of everything she’d held in all day.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I miss him too.”

She pulled back, her eyes red. “I know I’m not easy. I know I forget things. But I’m scared, Katie. I’m scared I’ll forget all of him, not just his number.”

I sank onto the floor beside her, the cold tiles biting through my pajama pants. “I am too.”

We sat there, two women holding onto the scraps of a family, afraid that if we let go, we’d lose everything. The silence was softer now, heavy but not sharp.

“I used to call him when you were little, you know,” Mom said, voice far away. “Whenever you had a nightmare. He’d sing you back to sleep, even over the phone.”

I remembered. It hurt to remember. “He was good at that.”

She smiled, weak but real. “Maybe we can remember together. Write it down, share the stories. Maybe that’s how we keep him.”

We started a new ritual after that night. Every Sunday, we’d pull out the photo albums, the old letters, and yes, the sticky notes. We wrote down not just numbers, but memories. The way Dad whistled off-key, the stupid jokes he’d tell at the dinner table, the way he’d sneak chocolate to Mom when he thought I wasn’t looking.

Sometimes the pain came back, sharp and unexpected, like when I’d see his baseball cap on the hook or hear his favorite song on the radio. Sometimes I still snapped at Mom, and sometimes she still forgot. But we learned to forgive each other, slowly.

One afternoon, I found her in the garden, humming to herself as she pruned the rose bushes. Her phone buzzed with a reminder: “Call Katie”—not Dad, not anyone else. Just me.

She looked up and smiled. “You know, I think I’m finally starting to remember the important things.”

I smiled back, feeling something like peace. Maybe we’d never stop missing him. Maybe we’d never stop losing little pieces of ourselves along the way. But we had each other, and that was enough.

Sometimes I wonder—how much do we lose when we let go of the past? And how much do we gain when we choose to remember together?