It was the early-morning phone call that so many of us dread. My mother was in the emergency ward of her local hospital. She was struggling to breathe. I went into automatic mode, booking the first available flight to Karachi. I threw clothes into a bag, grabbed my passport and headed for Brussels airport with a heavy heart.

Only 12 hours earlier, we had spoken on the phone. It was my birthday. She was her usual cheerful self, her signature laugh ringing out as she regaled me with stories from my childhood. She asked about my granddaughter – her great-granddaughter, whom she adored – and wanted to know what I was working on and where I planned to travel next.

We had planned to spend part of this month and August together at her home in Karachi. It would be just the two of us. As we had done last year, after my younger sister died, leaving us broken-hearted, we would sit together and talk, meet old friends and enjoy Karachi’s extraordinary cafes and restaurants. We’d buy chocolate cake and eat croissants for breakfast – a taste she had acquired while living in Belgium.

I had started exploring the idea of moving to Pakistan temporarily, renting a place to be close to her or even asking her to come and stay with me in Belgium. But when I suggested it to her, she said no. “You have your work and your life. Just visit me this summer as you have planned.” I shouldn’t have listened.

When I got off the plane and rushed to her hospital room, her face lit up. She held up her arms to embrace me. She chuckled as we looked at photographs of my granddaughter, including a short clip of her saying, “Nani Ma”.

But later that evening, she told me that after speaking to me on my birthday and talking to many of her beloved nieces, a deep sadness had descended on her as she went to bed. And she had cried and cried.

The last year had been difficult. She missed my younger sister terribly. A close friend had also just died in a car accident. “I can’t get over the pain,” she told........

© The Guardian