I always thought I knew every detail of my daughter’s life.
After losing her, that certainty seemed even stronger. I spent hours going over memories, conversations, and shared moments, convinced that there was nothing about her that I didn’t already know.
But she was completely wrong.
And it all started with a call that I almost decided not to answer.
The pain that changed everything
There is no pain comparable to the pain of losing a child.
When my daughter Valentina passed away at the age of thirteen after a long illness, I didn’t just lose the person I loved most in the world. I felt like a part of me disappeared too.
Since then, my life has been divided into two stages.w
Before the illness.
And after her.
Nothing was ever the same again.
I left his room exactly as it was.
The gray jacket was still hanging on the desk chair.
Her pink sneakers lay by the door, tilted inwards, as if she had left them there on her way home from school.
Sometimes I would catch myself imagining that he would suddenly appear and say:
—Mom, promise me you won’t get mad, but…
And then he remembered that that moment would never happen again.
The days began to blend into one another.
I stopped looking at the time.
I stopped replying to messages.
I stopped answering calls.
Life went on outside, but inside me everything remained frozen.
Until that Tuesday morning.
