My mom died in January. After that, I did something I never told anyone about: I kept calling her phone number just to hear her voicemail greeting—“Hi honey, leave a message.” It wasn’t really about leaving a message. It was about hearing her voice say “honey” one more time, even if it was recorded. It was the closest thing I had to comfort on the days when the grief hit like a wave.
For months, that voicemail was my little secret lifeline.
Then on New Year’s Eve, it happened. I dialed the number like I always did… and it was gone. The phone company had finally disconnected it. No voicemail. No greeting. Just that cold automated message telling me the number was no longer in service.
I didn’t make it back inside. I broke down right there on the street outside my apartment, sobbing like I’d lost her all over again. Because in a way, I had—one last thread had been cut.
A woman walking by slowed down and asked, “Are you okay?”
Normally I would’ve brushed her off, lied, said I was fine. But something about that moment cracked me open. I told her the truth. The whole truth. That my mom was gone, that I called her number just to hear her voice, and that tonight it disappeared.
Instead of offering quick advice or awkward sympathy, she did something I’ll never forget: she sat down with me on the curb in the freezing air and said, “Then talk. I’ll listen. Start the year letting someone hold the weight with you.”
And she meant it.
She stayed with me until midnight. We didn’t do anything dramatic—we just talked. I cried. I laughed a little through tears. I said things I hadn’t said out loud in months. She listened like it mattered.
When we finally stood up to leave, she handed me her number and said, “Call me instead next time.”
A few days later, on a rough afternoon, I actually tried to call it.
The number wasn’t in service.
To this day, I don’t know if she wrote it wrong, changed it, or if she never intended it to work in the first place. But somehow, the strangest part is this: I didn’t feel rejected. I didn’t feel abandoned.
It felt… intentional. Like she was meant to be there for one single night—long enough to get me through that moment—like a final kindness dropped into my life at exactly the right time.
And I can’t explain it, but it almost felt like my mom had given me one last gift: one last stranger, one last bit of warmth… and then permission to finally let go.
