I had always been a good daughter — by society’s standards anyway.
Straight-A student. Polite. Obedient. Driven.
I placed first in almost every subject. I represented my school. I collected medals like they were birthday cards.

But none of that ever seemed to move my mother.

Not once did I see her smile with pride.
Not once did she cry with joy.
She simply said, “That’s what’s expected. Don’t waste time.”

I used to believe she was made of stone.

When I was nine, I asked her why she didn’t clap like the other parents.
She said, “We don’t need to shout to know your worth. Finish what you started.”

I told myself she was just tough. That maybe she’d smile later, alone, when no one was watching.

But it never came.

The pressure grew with age. I studied harder, longer — skipped meals, lost sleep. I thought if I was perfect enough, she’d show me the warmth I craved. Just once.

Instead, she grew colder.

My father left when I was ten. Left her for another woman — someone who promised him a son, the “heir” his family demanded. I remember my mother kneeling on the bathroom floor, scrubbing tiles with blistered hands, pretending her heartbreak wasn’t bleeding into the cracks.

She never mentioned him again. And she never cried.

I watched her become a ghost in her own home — reduced to silence by my grandparents, who always made it clear:
“She failed as a wife because she couldn’t give us a boy.”
“She failed as a daughter because she speaks too much.”
“She failed as a mother because her child is a girl.”

Still, she endured. Still, she never cried.

I, however, was tired.
Tired of chasing something I could never reach — her love.
Tired of being invisible, even when I was breaking.

And one day, in the haze of exhaustion and quiet desperation, I climbed to the rooftop of our school.
Not because I wanted to die.
But because I wanted to feel — something. Anything.

I remember the wind.
I remember the way the sky looked — wide, endless.
And then… nothing.

They said I was brain-dead.

A fall from that height should have ended it.
But something strange happened.
My body was lifeless… yet I was still there.

I saw my mother sit beside my hospital bed, hands calloused, shoulders hunched.
I saw the doctors whisper to her, their words cold and final:
“She won’t wake up.”

Still, she sat.
Every. Single. Day.

I watched her being insulted by my grandmother.
“You brought this shame upon us. A girl who can’t even survive properly.”

I saw her scrub the floor at a hotel at night, and return to my bedside by morning.
She sold her wedding ring to pay for more tests. She argued with doctors. She learned medical jargon.
She whispered to me in the dark,
“I know you’re still in there. I wasn’t the mother you needed. But if you give me one more chance, I’ll become one.”

Then… one night…

I saw her stand by the hospital window.
The moonlight touched her face.
Her hand trembled on the glass.

She opened the window and stepped up.

“I’m sorry,” she said to the sky. “I couldn’t protect her. And I can’t protect myself anymore.”

And that’s when it happened.

My eyes opened.

I don’t remember the pain. I only remember her cry.

Not a scream. Not a sob.
A sound so fragile it broke the world inside me.

She dropped to her knees, trembling, arms wrapping around me like I was new to her — like I was born again.

We cried together.
For the years we lost.
For the things we didn’t say.
For the love we had buried beneath survival.

It’s been five years since then.

My mother is now the director of a women’s empowerment foundation.
She rose from cleaning hotel bathrooms to becoming a respected leader, teaching abandoned women to stand tall.

And me?

I’m in my final year at one of the country’s top universities, majoring in psychology — determined to help others speak when they feel unseen.

I write letters to her now.
Every week.
And she saves them in a drawer labeled “My Daughter’s Heart.”

Sometimes I still wonder why she never cried before.
But maybe she couldn’t.
Maybe the world taught her that softness was weakness. That love had to be silent.

But I saw her cry.
And now, every time she holds me, I feel the years we’ve recovered — together.

I used to believe she had no tears.
Now I know — she was simply saving them…
For the moment her daughter came back to life.