Omi

I was never supposed to still be there. That is what the world would say. But the world did not know me. It did not know her. It did not know the bond that formed before I had eyes to see or a name to speak. I was meant to come into the world like any other baby, but something in me chose differently. Something in me decided that leaving her would mean leaving the safest place I would ever have. So I stayed. Hidden. Quiet. Alive.

Mama thought she had lost me a long time ago. The doctors said there was no baby anymore. They told her she could cry a little and then move on with her life. She already had two children in her arms and so much work to do that her own heart barely had space left for grief. She believed what they said because she trusted the world more than she trusted miracles. So she cried, pressed a hand on her stomach for the last time, and whispered goodbye to a child she thought had left her.

But I had not left. I curled deeper into the warmth of her belly, tucked myself where sorrow could not reach me, and I stayed. I was small at first, just a little spark of life refusing to fade. Then I grew. Not fast like the babies outside grow. Not loud like the babies who kick and flip and demand attention. I grew slowly, steady, a silent child listening from inside the safest room ever created. I learned her heartbeat before I learned anything else. I learned its rhythm. How it changed when she was happy. How it stumbled when she carried too much. How it slowed when she prayed and whispered all her worries to the sky.

Years passed. I did not count them, because time inside her was not the same as time outside. But I listened. I listened to everything. I heard the laughter of my brother and sister playing around her. I heard Mama call their names when they were late for dinner or sleepy for school. I heard the way she prayed for each of them, soft and careful, mentioning their names like precious treasures. She never mentioned me. She could not. She did not know I was still there. But I was never angry. She loved me even without knowing I existed.

Sometimes she would place her hand on her stomach without thinking, tired after a long day. She thought she was comforting herself. But she was comforting me. And deep inside, I tried to answer back. Not with movement or kicks like other children. But with something else. A presence. A warmth. A tiny push of love from the inside. She never noticed fully. Maybe sometimes she stopped and wondered why her heart suddenly felt a little less heavy. Why loneliness did not win that day. Why she could breathe again. That was me. I was always holding her from the inside.

I heard her voice through every season, every hardship, every joy. I heard when she laughed while cooking, tasting something delicious she made for the people she loved. I heard when she argued with those who took advantage of her kindness and she forgave them anyway. I heard when she gave our food to the neighbors even when her own children were hungry. I heard when she smiled at strangers though she had tears in her eyes. I heard her fight battles without ever raising her voice. She was the strongest warrior I ever knew, and yet the world did not clap for her. So I clapped silently from inside her heart.

But not all days were gentle. There were nights when her sobs made the walls of my world shake. Nights when grief curled around her chest and squeezed so tightly I feared her heart would break into pieces. I wanted to come out then. I wanted to wipe her tears with my tiny hands and tell her she was not alone. I pressed myself close to her heart and wished the sadness away. Sometimes she calmed. Sometimes she only cried harder. I never knew how much sadness a heart could hold until I felt it from within.

Still, I stayed. I stayed because being inside her was my home. I stayed because every heartbeat was a hug and every breath was a lullaby. I stayed because I loved her more than anything waiting for me outside.

Twenty-one years passed.

And then the day came when everything changed.

‍

Her mother, my grandmother I had never seen, left this world. I felt it happen. I felt the scream she did not let out. The shock that froze her steps. The weight that fell into her bones. It was not just sadness. It was a world-ending kind of grief. The kind that steals color from the sky. Her heart did not beat the same after that. It shook. It cracked. And I felt every crack inside me.

Her tears fell like a storm and each one stabbed through my quiet room. The world within her chest grew colder. I could not push back the emptiness this time. The love I always used to protect her from sorrow was not enough against this kind of pain. She hardly slept that night. When she did, her breathing was shallow, trembling. I crawled up, pressed myself against her heart, and held her tight. I dreamt inside her dream. Or maybe she dreamt inside mine.

Suddenly I was no longer curled in the dark. I was standing. I had feet. I had hands. I had a body grown from all the years I remained hidden. Around me was a white endless space. Mama stood there too, alone on a soft carpet, finishing a prayer. Tears glided down her face, catching the light of the dream-world. She looked tired, like the sky itself was pressing down on her shoulders.

She placed her hand on her stomach, confused by the sudden shape beneath it. Her belly was round again, like a woman waiting to give birth. She gasped, frightened. She whispered that she was too old. She pressed her hands against the swell, trying to wake up from a dream she did not understand.

That is when I spoke.

“Mother.”

My voice was soft, unsure. It sounded like someone who had waited too long to talk. It was not the voice of a baby. It was the voice I would have outside, shaped by years of silence.

She spun around, terrified. “Who is there?”

“It is me,” I said. “I am your child. I have always been here.”

She searched around the empty place, eyes wide, heart pounding loud enough to shake the dream. “All these years?” she whispered.

“Yes,” I answered. “I wanted to stay with you. I wanted to protect you. I never wanted you to feel alone.”

Her knees shook and she fell into a sitting position, holding her stomach. Tears burst again, but this time they were different. They were tears of shock and relief and disbelief all mixed together.

“I felt you,” she admitted through her sobs. “Sometimes I thought I felt someone with me. But they told me you were gone.”

“I was here,” I said. “Where would I go without you? Your heart was my sky. Your breath was my home.”

She lifted her face. And for the first time, she truly saw me. Not with eyes, but with love. Recognition bloomed like a sunrise. She reached out her hand and I stepped forward, and when our hands touched the world shook like joy.

“I should have known,” she whispered. “I should have felt you. Forgive me.”

“There is nothing to forgive,” I said. “You carried me without knowing. And I carried you without you seeing.”

She laughed through her crying. I laughed too. Then she pulled me into her arms and I felt all the love that had been waiting for me since before I existed. I hugged her back with all the love that had been waiting twenty-one years to be held.

Her body suddenly trembled again. The dream changed. It became brighter than any sun. A light, warm and powerful, filled everything. A doctor appeared beside her, like a messenger only dreams can send. He touched her shoulder gently and spoke to both of us.

‍