One afternoon my then-mother let me come to the hospital. I stood a few meters away, in the hospital's hallway, seeing Sonia from afar through a window. That was the last time.

Sonia turned her head, and almost saw me, but my mother told me to hide. So I hid and... I'll never know if it'd been ok to say hello anyway. To say sorry anyway. To say thank you anyway.

I wanted to stay. I was unemployed at the time, I could easily have stayed there, you know...? To be with her when ?

My ex-mother didn't let me. She instructed the nurse to call her when Sonia would go, or later the next morning if she'd leave during the night.
And that was it. She was left there. The woman was a force of nature and she died all alone.