The Call I Didn’t Answer

There’s a distinctive sound my phone produces when my mother calls.

It’s not loud. Not dramatic. Just a subtle vibration and a tone I’ve heard for years. The kind of music you imagine will always come again tomorrow.

That day, I silenced it.

I was in the middle of a meeting. Slides on a screen. Numbers. Deadlines. Someone talking about quarterly estimates as if the world depended on them. My phone buzzed once. Then again.

“Mom,” it said.

I pressed decline.

I assured myself I’d call her back.

You already know where this is headed.

My mother wasn’t the sort to call often unless something was wrong. She preferred brief discussions. She would question if I was eating well. Remind me to sleep on time. Complain lightly about her knees. Then she’d say, “Okay, I won’t disturb you.”

I used to chuckle at that.

“You’re not disturbing me,” I would say.

But the truth was more complicated. I was usually occupied. Always building something. Chasing something. Proving something.

That afternoon, when the meeting finally finished, I stepped outside to call her back.

She didn’t answer.

I tried again.

And again.

Then my sister called.

There are moments in life when the air changes. You don’t know the words yet, but your body does. Your chest tightens. Your hands feel cold. The world narrows.

“She collapsed,” my sister remarked. “They’re taking her to the hospital.”

The next few hours exist in bits. Traffic lights. The buzz of the engine. My heartbeat in my ears. I remember praying in a way I hadn’t prayed in years. Not for money. Not for success. Just for one more opportunity.

One more conversation.

One another average call.

But life doesn’t bargain.

By the time I reached the hospital, everything was silent.

Too quiet.

People say grief hits like a wave.

For me, it was silence.

A quiet so heavy it followed me home.

Her room still smelled like her. The shawl she wore in the evenings was spread over the chair. Her glasses rested on the table next to a half-read newspaper.

And my phone.

My phone still showed the missed calls.

Two missed calls.

Fourteen seconds apart.

I stared at the screen as if I could undo it. As if staring hard enough will reverse time.

It didn’t.

In the weeks that followed, everyone said the same thing.

“You couldn’t have known.”

“It was sudden.”

“Don’t blame yourself.”

But regret doesn’t listen to rationality.

Regret is unreasonable. It finds minor details and constructs huge jails out of them.

What did she want to say?

Was it something small? Did she just want to hear my voice? Did she feel something coming? Was she afraid?

I will never know.

That’s the worst part about “too late.” It doesn’t simply take a person. It takes the solutions with them.

I started seeing things I used to dismiss.

How often I postponed talks.

How readily I prioritized emails above people.

How firmly I imagined there will always be another tomorrow.

We live like time is renewable. Like relationships are subscriptions we may suspend and resume whenever appropriate.

They aren’t.

I used to assume love was about huge gestures - pricey presents, scheduled visits, extended vacations. But mourning taught me something uncomfortable.

Love is often just availability.

Answering the call.

Saying, “I’m here.”

Even when you’re busy.

Especially when you’re busy.

Months later, I found a little journal in her drawer. Inside, she had scribbled basic things. Grocery lists. Phone numbers. Reminders.

On one page, in her uneven handwriting, she had written:

“Call him in the afternoon.”

No context. No explanation.

Just that.

Maybe she had something essential to say.

Maybe she just wanted to hear my voice.

That uncertainty will linger with me longer than the funeral did.

People move on.

They have to.

Work resumes. Meetings happen. Phones ring. Life reorganizes itself around absence.

But occasionally, in the calm of the evening, when my phone pings, my heart still jumps.

For a fraction of a second, I expect her name to emerge.

It never does.

And that is how regret lives – not loudly, not dramatically, but in quiet, daily times.

If there’s anything this narrative gives, it isn’t a lesson wrapped in perfection. I still miss calls. I still get busy. I am still human.

But when her name used to come on my screen, it was ordinary.

Now I understand: ordinary is sacred.

And sometimes, the tiniest decisions resonate the longest.