Birthdays don’t feel like celebrations anymore.
It’s been weeks since I turned 37, and yet the thought of celebrating feels hollow. This year, 2024, feels like a cruel shadow of the joy I experienced in 2023—a time when I genuinely felt alive and at peace. But now, happiness feels like a distant memory, replaced by overwhelming darkness.
This year has been an unrelenting storm of heartbreaks. Financial struggles have loomed large, forcing me to confront challenges I never saw coming. Losing my long-time job—a position I thought was secure—has left me questioning my worth and my future. And as if that wasn’t enough, I found myself hospitalized for the first time in years.
But nothing compares to the profound emptiness of losing my mother. She wasn’t just my mom; she was my anchor, my confidante, my safe place in this world. I’ve always been a mama’s boy, unashamedly so. But since her passing, I’ve been carrying this unbearable weight—a grief that refuses to pour out as tears. I can’t seem to cry, even though I know I need to. It feels like my sorrow is locked deep inside me, waiting to explode but never finding release.
And here’s what I keep asking myself: why does life feel so unbearably unfair?
I’ve always taken care of myself. I’ve never touched drugs, I don’t smoke, I don’t drink. Yet, here I am, saddled with a health issue that feels like punishment. Why? What did I do to deserve this?
As a son, I believe I’ve done my best. I graduated both my courses (Nursing and Mass Communication) with flying colors. I never had failing marks in my major subjects, always striving to make my parents proud. I’ve worked hard, built a colorful career, and achieved things I thought would bring my family joy. I’ve done my fair share of trying to make my parents’ lives comfortable, even if it wasn’t always easy.
And yet, here I am, without them. God took away both my parents before they could see the rest of what my sister and I are capable of achieving. They didn’t live long enough to see me reach the milestones I had dreamed of sharing with them. Why did they have to leave so soon?
This year has left me questioning everything—my purpose, my faith, my resilience. How do you find the strength to keep going when life seems so unkind, so relentlessly cruel?
Why does life seem to take more from the ones who try their best to do good?
Why is it that when you feel like you’ve been carrying the weight of the world, the universe decides to pile on even more?
And most of all, why does it feel like the ones we love the most are taken from us just when we need them the most?
I don’t have the answers. But maybe, just maybe, asking these questions is the first step toward finding some kind of peace.
ʙᴏɴɴᴇ ᴀᴘᴘᴇᴛɪᴛ 