There’s a deep sadness that comes flooding my chest every time I think about Abuela. I can’t help but remember that morning a few years ago when the phone rang during breakfast. I remember the look on Ma’s face as she listened to what my aunt was saying, the way she bent over in pain. I remember how she could barely even speak after she hung up, how she had to take a million deep breaths just to be able to explain that Abuela had passed away. I also remember the way Ma just vanished—vanished into her room for days, vanished into a different version of herself. And I remember how, a couple of weeks after the news came, I overheard her talking to my dad while they were cleaning up the kitchen after dinner.

“I haven’t seen my mother since I was twenty-one,” she said. “And now I never will.”

The silence that followed was heavy with grief, with pain, with uncertainty of what to say next.

Ma gave a long sigh. “I guess, deep down, I always thought we would be reunited. I thought Mateo and Sophie would get to meet her. I thought I’d get to hug her, and smell her perfume, and look into her eyes again.”

That was the first time I really understood everything my parents had given up when they left Mexico. I’d always known they’d made sacrifices, but I had never really seen or felt those sacrifices firsthand. After that, something shifted deep inside of me. When Ma and Pa got home from work looking exhausted, I offered to help with dinner. When they suggested that I apply to a specialized high school, I went to the public library and checked out a dozen books to help me prepare for the admissions test. When they asked about my Broadway dreams, I’d promise them I was gonna make it big one day, hoping that at the end of the day, everything they’ve done would be worth it.

But now, as I weave in and out of a weird state of sleep, I start to worry that my parents’ sacrifice will have been for nothing, and I can feel it more than ever—the pain my mom felt when she said those words. I haven’t seen my mother since I was twenty-one, and now I never will. I feel the helplessness she felt when she realized that the reunion she had always dreamt of was never going to happen. I understand why she reacted the way she did—why she was unable to leave her room for days, why she refused to face reality, because that is all I feel like doing right now. I want to fall into a deep sleep and not have to wake up.