I used to think the word agony was exaggerated—something people said when they wanted sympathy.
Then I watched my stepmother die.
By the end, she was painfully thin, her skin fragile and unpredictable—burning with fever one moment, ice-cold the next. Morphine barely touched the pain. Some nights she screamed until her voice cracked. Other nights she whimpered softly, clutching my hand like a child afraid to be left alone.
Her daughter—her biological daughter—was nowhere in the house.
Every morning, while I changed sheets soaked with sweat and washed my stepmother’s trembling body, my phone lit up with notifications.
Beach selfies.
Cocktails raised toward the sun.
Bare feet in white sand.
Captions like “Living my best life” and “You only live once.”
Meanwhile, I fed my stepmother one spoonful at a time when she was too weak to lift her head. I wiped her mouth. I held her when the pain came in violent waves that shook her entire body. I slept in a chair beside her bed because she panicked if she woke up alone.
Sometimes she would look at me and whisper,
“You don’t have to do this.”
I always gave the same answer.
“I know.”
And I stayed anyway.
The night she died, the house was unnaturally quiet. The only sound was her breathing—ragged, uneven, as if each breath had to be convinced to continue.
I washed her face one last time. Brushed her hair back gently. Told her it was okay to rest.
