The message came late on a quiet Wednesday night — one that still echoes in my mind.
“Does anyone have a little to spare? I need $60 for something important,” my grandmother wrote in our family group chat.
No emojis. No explanation. Just silence that followed.
One by one, everyone read the message — my mom, my aunts, my cousins — but no one replied. I waited, assuming someone else would step in. No one did.
Two days later, she was gone. Peacefully, in her sleep.
When my mom called to tell me, her voice cracked before she even said the words. I sat frozen, staring at that unread message on my screen. Her last message. The one we all ignored.
Later, I went to her small apartment — the same one that always smelled faintly of lavender and comfort. On the kitchen table sat a small box wrapped in blue ribbon, with a note beside it addressed to me.
“Thank you for remembering me.”
My breath caught. I opened the box with shaking hands. Inside were two sketchbooks and a set of graphite pencils — the exact ones I’d admired months earlier but never bought.
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