Two Years Without a Word from My Daughter: She’s Erased Me from Her Life, and I’ll Soon Be 70…

Two years have gone by without a single word from my daughter: she has erased me from her life, and I will soon be 70
In our neighborhood everyone knows my neighbor, ÉlodieFournier. She is 68, lives alone, and every now and then I stop by with a few pastries for tea, just as neighbors do. She is kind, an elegant woman who always smiles and loves to recount her travels with her late husband. She rarely mentions her family. Yet on the eve of the last holidays, when I arrived as usual with some sweets, she suddenly decided to open up. That night I heard a story that still freezes my heart.
When I entered her home, Élodie was not her usual self. Normally lively and energetic, she sat that evening with her eyes staring into emptiness. I asked no questions; I simply made the tea, set the biscuits down, and sat quietly beside her. She remained silent for a long time, as if fighting herself. Then, abruptly, she spoke:
Two years she hasnt called me once. No card, no message. I tried to reach her, but her number no longer exists. I dont even know where she lives
She paused. It seemed as though years, decades drifted before her eyes. Then, as if a dam had broken, Élodie began to tell her tale.
We had a happy family. Charles and I married young, but we delayed having childrenwe wanted to live for ourselves first. His job let us travel a lot. We were close, laughed often, and loved the home we built together. With his own hands he created a spacious threeroom nest in the heart of Lyon the dream of his life.
When our daughter Amélie was born, Charles seemed reborn. He carried her, read her stories, spent every free moment with her. Watching them, I thought I was the happiest woman alive. But ten years ago Charles left us. He fought illness for a long time; we drained our savings trying to save him. Then silence. An emptiness, as if a piece of my heart had been ripped out.
After her fathers death, Amélie drifted away. She got an apartment, wanted to live on her own. I didnt object she was an adult, she had to build her own life. She visited, we talked, everything seemed normal. Two years ago, however, she came and announced she wanted a mortgage to buy her own place.
I sighed and told her I couldnt help. The money we had saved, the modest nest Charles and I had set aside, was almost gone spent on his treatment. My pension barely covered the bills and my medication. She then suggested selling the apartment. We could buy you a studio in the suburbs, and the rest would be my downpayment.
I could not agree. It wasnt about money; it was about memory. Those walls, every corner Charles had shaped them himself. All my happiness, my whole life, lived there. How could I abandon it? She shouted that her father had done all that for her, that the apartment would be hers anyway, that I was selfish. I tried to tell her I only hoped that one day she would return and remember us but she would not hear a word.
That day she slammed the door. Since then there has been only silence. No call, no visit, not even at holidays. Later I learned from a mutual friend that she did obtain the loan and now wears herself out with two jobs, a neverending race. No family, no children. Even her friend says she hasnt seen her in six months.
And I I wait. Every day I glance at the phone, hoping it will ring. Nothing. I cant even call her she changed her number. She probably no longer wants to see or hear me. She must think I betrayed her by refusing that day. Soon I will be 70. I dont know how much longer I have in this apartment, how many evenings I will spend at the window hoping. I cannot understand how I could have caused her so much pain.