72-year-old Mrs. Lakshmi lives alone in a small rented room in Delhi, and her daughter sends her monthly expenses.

A teacher in the village all her life, she lived a frugal life, saving every penny for her daughter’s education. By now, her daughter, Priya, is a manager at a large company, earning lakhs of rupees per month and has become successful.

One day, she called her daughter:

“I need some money… I’m going back to the village for a few days. It’s so stuffy in the city, I miss my hometown…”

Priya sighed, her voice busy:
“Oh my God, why should I go back now? The journey is so long and tiring. I’m busy paying off my bank loan and opening a new store… Please stay in Delhi for a few more months.”

A few days later, Mrs. Lakshmi called again.

This time, the phone went unanswered.

Messages went unanswered.

By the end of the month, the allowance she was waiting for… he was also silent. Not a word.

Mrs. Lakshmi quietly went to the pawn shop in the old market and took out the gold wedding ring left by her husband:

“Lend me some money… I want to go back to the village for a few days.”

Three days later…
Priya was in a meeting when the phone rang incessantly. On the other end was a neighbor from Varanasi village. Her voice trembled:

“Priya… your mother passed away. She returned alone, always sick, and no one knew. Only when the neighbors smelled the pungent odor of medicine did they find out. She died in that abandoned house – the same house our family hasn’t sold…”
Priya was stunned.

The phone dropped from her hand.

The meeting ended in a deep silence.

She quickly went back to the village.

In the old house, on a wooden table lay a makeshift photograph of her mother and a letter written in shaky handwriting:

“I apologize for returning to the village without permission.

I miss the courtyard, I miss the banana grove your father planted.

I know you’re busy, so I don’t blame you.

If you miss me in the future, come back and light an incense stick for me—that’s enough.”

The Final Turn

A neighbor burst into tears and explained:

“Every day she would sit in the street and boast: ‘My daughter is so good, she must have been so busy that she couldn’t come back.’ But every night she would cough, and no one would notice. That morning, people found her lying near the door, the door key still clutched tightly in her hand… Perhaps she was about to open the door to call someone for help.”

After the funeral, Priya went to a pawn shop to redeem her mother’s wedding ring. But the shopkeeper shook his head:

“Early in the morning, an old man came to redeem it. He said he was… an old classmate of Lakshmi’s. Then he took the ring with a strange smile… as if a burden had been lifted from him.”

Message

Later, the place where Lakshmi died was converted not into a new home, but into a small room for single mothers, so that anyone passing by could stop and rest.

A wooden board hung on the wall, engraved with these words in Hindi and English:

“If your mother is still alive, please don’t let her return home.”

Part 2: Belated Regrets

After the funeral, everyone in the village left one by one, leaving only Priya sitting quietly in the bungalow. The flickering oil lamp cast a shadow on her mother’s portrait on the wall. She looked around – the house was covered in dust, the walls were damp, the shabby wooden bed still smelled of cough medicine.

In the corner of the table, her mother’s old cloth bag was still there. Priya opened it – inside were just a few faded saris, a notebook containing her meager pension, and a worn woolen scarf. She touched everything, her eyes blurring.

“Why did I leave my mother alone in this condition? Why didn’t I come back… at least once?”

A choked sob escaped her lips, causing Priya to collapse at the altar.

The next morning, her close neighbor, Mrs. Radha, came to visit. She took Priya’s hand and said softly,

“Don’t blame yourself. Lakshmi is always proud of you. Every day she says, ‘My Priya is very nice, she’s just very busy.’ I think you love me, you just don’t have time to come back.”

Priya burst into tears.

“I… I was wrong, Aunt. I thought sending money every month was enough, but I forgot that my mother needs love more than anything.”

Radha sighed, “No amount of money can compensate for your one visit. She left, but she still forgave you. Now you just have to listen to her heart.”

Priya remembered her mother’s wedding ring. She went back to the pawn shop and asked the owner again.

“The old man who redeemed the ring that morning… who was he?”

The boss shook his head:
“I’ve never seen her before. She said she was an old classmate of Mrs. Lakshmi’s, and she paid for the ring. But it’s strange… she didn’t tell me her name. As I was leaving, I saw her smiling, tears welling up in her eyes.”

Priya was stunned. “An old classmate? Or just a way for Mom to hand over a memento? Perhaps fate didn’t want me to keep it…”

A few weeks later, Priya returned to Delhi. In her plush apartment, everything suddenly seemed meaningless. The meetings, the contracts, the money—everything had gone cold. Every night she dreamed of her mother, sitting on the veranda of her country house, coughing, waiting for her daughter to return.

Priya decided to sell some of her possessions in the city. She returned to her old village, and converted her mother’s house into a “resort for single mothers.”

On the wall, she hung a picture of Lakshmi and a wooden plaque engraved with these words:

“If your mother is still alive – please don’t let her go back to her hometown.”

Every time a single mother came by, Priya would make her tea and clean a place for her to rest. She saw it as a way to make up for her past mistakes – to make up for what she hadn’t done for her mother.

One afternoon, as Priya stood in front of her house, she saw a familiar figure at the end of the small lane – an elderly woman, wearing a white sari, with silver hair, smiling lovingly.

Priya rubbed her eyes, but the figure had disappeared.

She burst into tears and whispered:
“Mother… forgive me. I won’t let another mother be as lonely as you.”

The wind blew through the banana trees in the courtyard, rustling the leaves.

Priya spent her entire life in Delhi, but every weekend she returned to that village in Varanasi. Her mother’s small room gradually became a refuge for many single mothers.

And somewhere, Mrs. Lakshmi’s soul must be smiling, because finally, her daughter has understood the simplest thing: a mother’s love doesn’t need money, it just needs to come back once.