“Let me speak my sorrow…”
Mary Mba (Ph.D.)
I don’t even know where to begin—only that my chest feels too tight and my eyes too full. The ache of being misunderstood is sharp, but the silence that follows is even sharper. I have given everything I had, sometimes more than I should have, for the sake of love, for survival, for the hope of a better future for those I carried, nursed, fed, and fought for.
Now, when I look around, the emptiness begins to echo louder than any cry. I am grieving not just what’s lost, but what was never truly mine: appreciation, reciprocity, softness. I mothered through fire, and now I sit in the ash.
No one sees how deep the sacrifices go. The unpaid bills. The sleepless nights. The soul-level exhaustion. The ways I folded myself small so others could feel large. The way I bore insults and kept walking. But now, the accusations hurt because they come from the mouths I once fed, the hearts I once shielded.
Still—I let this grief pass through me. Not to carry it forever. But to honor it, to give it voice, to set it down.
I have nothing to prove anymore. My pain has earned its place, and my healing deserves space too.