Not to downplay anyone else's potential misery/suffering, but I can't think of many other ways of having even worse Christmas than what my family's been currently through.

To put it bluntly, my mother passed away on Sunday. It all happened so fast that I still don't know how to feel about all of this. Sadness, obviously, but also plain disbelief... and I've grown more cynical of things. Never in a million years, as I was starting my vacation leave from work on 15th, I could have expected anything like this to happen.

On Wednesday 17th, I received a text message from my mom, asking me to visit her place as she had something important to tell. Which was already a bit worrying since she didn't usually communicate like this. If there was something to discuss, it could be carried over by texts. This time she insisted that we should meet up face to face. I agreed to visit her next day on Thursday.

As I made my way to my mother's house, I was expecting that somebody else might've passed away, my 82-year old grandma for an example. But then my mother broke the news... couldn't really catch the news at first, took me a while to process. She herself was diagnosed with a liver cancer earlier the week, after a visit to a doctor due her side starting to hurt out of nowhere.

As soon as I processed the words "liver" and "cancer", I immediately knew that there was no recovering from that. It is unfortunately one of those forms of cancer that there's not much to be done. She already looked a bit more fragile than normal, though I'm sure it was partly because of the medication she was under at the moment. I was already starting to wonder how heavy the year 2026 would be, us witnessing her last moments for the upcoming months, withering away little by little, unsure how much time there would be exactly left. Little did I know, after that four hour visit over her place, that Thursday would be the last time I'll be seeing her alive.

On Friday, my mom texted me to let me know that she had made an appointment for further examinations to Tuesday 23rd, and the doctor was supposed to contact her before New Year's Eve to let her know the results and where exactly we are with the illness. On Saturday, she replied to one of our group chats in Whatsapp, commenting to my aunt's post/picture how beautiful a local marketplace square looked with all the Christmas decoration. And that was the last message that she sent.

I also held a housewarming party on Saturday evening, because I had moved to a new apartment recently (like, half a year ago, I only now unpacked rest of my stuff and got a new couch to my living room for people to sit on). I couldn't decide to whether I should mention about this situation to my friends. I ultimately decided not to worry anybody else with my burden, because I didn't want to ruin the mood (still haven't told any of them what happened, I will eventually). At the time, the situation was still developing, so I had nothing definitive to inform to anybody. We were supposed to just wait for now until the blood tests next week.

But as Sunday morning arrived, I got a call from my brother 7am in the morning. He asked if I wanted to come to the hospital, as this would be the last time to see mother. It already had escalated to this, my mother was dying. I clothed up and went outside and waited my brother to pick me up.

We arrived to the hospital and learned pretty quickly that she was already gone, around 6.30am, before I even got the call from my brother. So there was never a change for us to see her alive and say our goodbyes, which sucks... and still stings. We were allowed to take a look at her corpse, which was still breathing about an hour earlier. It was surreal. Felt like touching a prop or something, the warmth that used to be there was already fading away fast. As we left the hospital, I decided to walk back home to try to clear my mind, though that Sunday was very foggy day to my mind, couldn't think of clearly at all and I just wanted to be alone at home. before I left the hospital area, I sent that bluesky post some of you might have seen.

She was 60-yo, very hard-working person. While not the youngest person, still too young to go like that. She had made the effort a couple years ago to move closer to me and my brother, which I was happy about. She was supposed to retire from her current work in few years and spend her last years with her grandkids (my brother's children) being the greatest grandmother to them. But that all was taken away from her, which is what I hate about all of this by far the most.

Though if there's anything good to be said about this situation, she didn't have to suffer much, if any at all. This all happened within a week, under seven days. I always thought that the whole process from cancer diagnose till the eventual death would last at least months, in "good" cases several years. I was mentally preparing myself for that, but this was just brutally quick, like a cruel joke/prank. And I still don't know how to feel about all of this...

I've gotten over most of the sadness, and I'm not too worry about my mental well-being... though I'm sure seeing your mother's dead corpse in the hospital is something that scars your mind a bit. But all things considered, I'm going to be fine. We had a bit of Christmas celebration yesterday with our usual group of people, minus mother of course, and it went well. No tears were shed, and we were able to discuss of our mother in a proper polite way, which was nice. Grandkids were aware of what had happened, but they didn't seem too sad about it, they were able to play and enjoy their gifts. At least they're not afraid of death.

While I regret that I didn't get the proper change to say all of the things that I wanted to say to her before she went away, I'm happy how we spent that Thursday evening last week. It was a tender moment, and we shared plenty of hugs... we had a nice casual talk despite the situation. If there's anything to be taken from this, a couple of things:

- Speak your mind, talk to your close ones and say the things that you want to say while you still can.
- Hard work does not pay off, there's a probable change that you may not get your change to enjoy the fruit of your work.
- (^That being said) If you're a creative person, stop procrastinating and finish the project while there's still time. I'm definitely trying to draw more art more often. It's been a while...


With all that being said, and while I'm still processing these past events, I wish you all Merry Christma, and Happy New Year of 2026. I guess in my case, it can't get worse than this year.

...and don't try to come talk to me about Jesus, because there sure as fuck is no God.