The Morning Everything Changed: For Catherine (Ekaterina), my mom

In 1997, one ordinary morning became the dividing line in my life. I picked up the phone in my small student apartment in Canada, expecting the usual call. Instead, I heard my father's voice—heavy, hollow, carrying a weight that instantly changed the air around me. He told me my mother had passed away. She was at home in Moldova. I was thousands of miles away.

For three months before that day, I had been calling her every single day. I didn't question it; it felt like something I simply had to do—a quiet pull, a premonition I only understood later. When the news came, I dropped everything, boarded the first flight I could find, and arrived home the evening before the funeral.

Even now, decades later, I still talk to her—when I'm stuck, when I need courage, even when I'm deciding what to wear. Her presence remains stitched into the fabric of my everyday life.

In the days after her passing, memories rose in waves—vivid and insistent.

I remember myself in sixth grade, hunched over geometry exercises at our tiny kitchen table. My mother moved between the stove and my notebook, explaining the importance of geometry while preparing dinner for the four of us. I loved algebra; geometry felt like a puzzle with missing pieces. She never lost patience, even when I did.

I remember her stories from university—her final year, when she taught chemistry and math to students of all ages. They asked her to return after graduation, but she chose a different path, stepping into economics and building her career at one of Chisinau's (Moldova's capital) leading enterprises. She carried her intellect lightly—never as a boast, always as a quiet force.

She loved animals with the same devotion she gave to everything else. When we got a kitten, she cooked for him. Having grown up on her home cooking, he refused to eat anything else—even when pet food finally appeared in Moldova. I remember late evenings: my mom sitting at the kitchen table, our cat Murzik perched on the table, purring as she slowly brushed him. They both enjoyed that quiet time. He was spoiled beyond measure.

After the Soviet Union collapsed, life became unpredictable. For our family, it was often very difficult. I was attending university then, watching my mother navigate each challenge with determination and grace. She tried to make the best of every bad situation, even when the odds were stacked against us.

Her resilience wasn't loud. It didn't announce itself. It lived in the way she carried herself, the way she protected us, and the way she kept going. That quiet strength shaped me more than any single moment.

Losing her carved a before and after into my life. But her influence—her voice, her lessons, her warmth—remains. I still reach for her when I need guidance. I still hear her when I'm unsure.

Some people leave, but never really disappear. My mother is one of them.