She came home tonight, but something is off. She usually calls to let me know she’s on her way, tells me what’s for dinner, and reminds me not to be late. But today is different. She looks lost, her makeup streaked down her face. She walks in without a word, passing me as if I’m not even there.

“Mom, what happened?” I yell after her. She pauses briefly, mutters that she needs time alone, and disappears into her room. That was almost a year ago.

Since then, she’s changed in ways I never imagined. Most days, she sits in silence, locked away from the world. When I try to talk to her, it ends in tears and frustration—both of us lashing out in fear, I think. She barely sleeps. She hardly eats. And she never laughs anymore. All that’s left are tears and this unshakable sense of loss.

She lost her job—a job that, for so long, she said was her purpose. Her identity. I was so proud when she rebuilt her life after everything she’d been through. She’s done it so many times before, but this time, she says, was the hardest. She worked tirelessly, even as they dangled promotions and raises in front of her but never delivered. She didn’t quit, though. She couldn’t. She wanted to prove to herself—and to me—that she was more than what life had thrown at her.

She’s always been a fighter. Starting out as a single mom, she carried the weight of everything—me, her job, even my grandmother who failed to support her only criticizes her as a mother. Which I questioned as an adult why she took her in. My mom says her dad walked out what was she supposed to do? She built a life for us from nothing, filling it with love and security. By the time I was ten, she had bought a house and made sure I never felt like I was missing out. She volunteered for my sports teams, joined the PTA, and worked double shifts to learn how to be better than her competitors and to make it all happen.

Then I got sick.

She gave up her first career, just as she was being promoted, to take care of me. She never hesitated, never complained. “There’s no choice,” she’d say. “You’re my daughter. You come first.” My dad wasn’t around, so she carried it all herself. My step father often not giving support to her or me instead going to work like nothing was happening. She was alone.

I remember the weekly hospital visits, her sleeping in a chair next to me, always holding it together. Even when the doctors mentioned cancer, she stayed calm. She never let me spiral, even when I could see the worry etched on her face. She was my rock, my biggest cheerleader, my best friend.

But now… now she’s a stranger. The woman in front of me feels hollow, cold. The laughter that once filled our home is gone. She’s angry, resentful, and says she’s broken. She keeps telling me how important it is to “be resilient, no one is coming to save you”but I don’t see that strength in her anymore.

She screams that no one listens, that no one cares. Maybe she’s being dramatic, or maybe she’s right. I keep replaying moments in my head, wondering when I stopped asking the questions she always knew to ask me.

Months later, I realized the truth: I failed her. I didn’t check in the way she would have. I didn’t notice how much she was hurting. It was easier not to. But she wouldn’t have let me go through something like this alone.

She tells me it’s too late. My mom—my best friend—is gone. The light in her eyes has faded, replaced by someone I don’t recognize.

She says she’s done, that it’s time to live her life. She spent years taking care of everyone else, and now she wants something for herself. She doesn’t know who she is or how she got here. She sees herself as lost. I understand that. I do. But am I selfish for wanting my mom back? The mom who was reliable, strong, and constant?

Now, the roles have reversed. I’m the one trying to hold things together while she acts like a teenager, staying out late and insisting this is how she’ll “find herself.” She says she’s making up for lost time, but I don’t understand what she’s looking for at 4 a.m. And I no longer will ask after our last battle. I just let her go, hoping she finds her way back.

I’ve tried to help, but nothing seems to be enough. She’s lost her job, her marriage, and—she says—herself. My dad thinks she needs a psychiatrist, but he doesn’t know what to do either. Actually he never does. He really is no better, she does it all for him. She told him she was leaving him but no matter what she says, he denies it’s real. He insists she’ll come back, but I don’t see it happening anymore. I feel lost she is gone and now my family is torn apart also. She doesn’t see it impacts all of us but also doesn’t seem to care. She says no one cared for twenty years ,why should she care now?

I feel she protected me from a lot of the issues because she is right, I don’t understand. What happened? I thought they were happy. So does this mean, what I thought I knew was a lie?

I don’t know how everything changed so quickly. In one day, my entire world flipped upside down. She used to protect me, guide me. Now, I feel like I’m the one taking care of her.

I keep hoping she’ll come back—the loving, strong woman I knew. But she keeps saying that person is dead. And maybe she’s right. Maybe I should have noticed sooner how much she was fading away. Maybe I should have asked the questions she never had to ask me.