Reasons why an ex should remain an ex

The pain of losing a mother is a cold, suffocating weight that alters the very chemistry of your world in a single second. The moment the doctor spoke those words, the ground beneath my feet didn't just shake—it completely dissolved. In a panic, blinded by a sudden and total darkness, my fingers moved on autopilot. I didn’t think about the past, the breakups, or the distance that had grown between us. I only thought about who truly knew the depth of my universe.

I called my ex the very day my mom died. I was crying on the phone, completely broken, sobbing so hard that the air caught in my throat, not knowing where to turn or how to take the next breath. I called him because, despite everything we had been through, he was one of the few people who understood how deeply, fiercely, and unconditionally I loved my mom

.​I was on the phone, the tears streaming hot and fast down my face, choking out the words through a tight, aching chest. I managed to tell him, "Peachy Peach is gone. My world has ended."​The shock on his end was instantaneous. He screamed into the receiver, "Oh! What happened to her?"​But the sheer weight of the truth was too heavy to carry through a phone line. I couldn’t explain myself.

The words dissolved into a fresh wave of breathless weeping before I finally just cut the line, unable to speak another syllable.​Later that evening, after his work hours, he came around to the house. By then, the compound and the living room were already filling up.

The heavy, somber atmosphere of a traditional Kenyan wake...