My mother.
I had just turned 16, and my mother was on her deathbed. Brain tumor developed rapidly. I quit going to school for months. Some time before she died, I wound up admitted to the same hospital she was in, but in the psych-ward. They wheeled her upstairs to see me. Looking back, that probably wasn't the best for her.
In the subsequent months, her health quickly deteriorated. I didn't respond to her texts often enough. She reminded me to complete my assignments. She suggested I not stay up too late. On the days I stayed home from school, she'd encourage me to go even if it meant going in late. She even arranged people to drive me to classes late, but most days I refused, or I had to be dragged out against my will. Frustrated with life, I didn't adequately appreciate the final love and care she tried her best to communicate to me, and I all but spurned it.
One day, we were discussing the will. Before I knew it, she could hardly speak. Then, she couldn't move. Then, she slept.
The only thing I heard from her ever again were quiet groans of pain and discomfort. The last thing she offered to me was a vague sense of recognition behind the slightest fluttering of her eyes. I held her hand then, and I remember gripping it tightly for my world was ending. After all, I never had a father, and I couldn't fathom how to navigate the daunting bureaucracy of adulthood without my mother to show me how.
I vividly remember that when I was informed of her death, I just said, "Oh," with the straightest expression. In retrospect, it seemed the people who had informed me were expecting a little more out of me. More of what, I don't know. They pulled me out of class. Suggested I leave for the rest of the day. I declined. It wasn't a surprise at that point. Some months prior, there was talk of recovery, but even though I put a smile on my face and encouraged it, I knew deep down in my heart, even then, that it was a lie. Perhaps some of them believed it, but I sure as hell didn't. I set my expectations as low as they could go. So, when I found out she died, I was already resigned to it all. I carried out my day as if nothing of import had happened.
The tears only came the next morning.