Do I still matter in your crowded day?
Is there still room for my voice?
My mother never asked for expensive gifts.
She never demanded money or elaborate gestures.
What she wanted was embarrassingly simple compared with the things I had convinced myself were important.
A few minutes.
A familiar voice.
A face on a small screen.
Proof that growing older had not made her invisible to the people she loved most.
I cannot recover every call I ignored.
I cannot reopen every moment when she reached for me and I chose something less important without realizing it.
But I can remember the phone beside her bed.
I can remember the charging cable, carefully arranged.
I can remember that volume turned all the way up.
And I can remember what my aunt said when I finally noticed.
Your mother didn’t learn video calls because she liked technology.
She learned because she missed her children.
For years, I thought mothers grew older loudly enough for their children to notice.
I was wrong.
Often they do it quietly.
They ask for less.
They call less often.
They say they understand when we are busy.
They learn not to complain because they don’t want love to feel like an obligation.
And sometimes, beside the bed, they leave a phone charging at maximum volume just in case one of their children remembers to call.
Now whenever I hear my mother ask, “Can you hear me?” I no longer rush to correct the camera or explain the buttons.
I answer the question that matters.
“Yes, Mom.
I’m here.”
