It was a couple days before 10/17/2017. I was exhausted.

I had about a week of work commissioning our new telescope in the mountains outside Tucson.

I’m an astronomer, but I’m not a night person. I thrive in the morning. Long nights, especially as winter approaches, make me irritable. I lose patience. I just want to sleep, eat, work, and rest.

My mom called. She needed help accessing her account on a website. She FaceTimed me, flipping the camera the wrong way, struggling to hold the phone steady while I tried to walk her through the “Do you want to remember this computer?” page. It was a mess.

I got frustrated. I got short. I rudely hung up on her.

That was the last time I talked to my mom. My last interaction.

In the early days of my grief, I put so much weight on that last moment. TV shows and movies portrayed the final conversation as these perfect moments for closure, where everything gets resolved. But all I could think about was whether my mom could forgive me for that last call.

For a long time, I couldn’t forgive myself. I didn’t want to. I was angry at myself, unable to accept that my last words to her were spoken in frustration. I was also angry at the world, like I had been robbed of the chance for a proper goodbye.

Months later, I started opening up more, trying to process everything. I had begun therapy to help me work through the loss. One day, I was talking to a friend who had just lost their mom, and I told them how guilty I felt about my last words.

They said, “Your last words to your mom does not define your relationship, Daniel.”

Something clicked. They were right. It was so simple for my situation.

Our relationship wasn’t shaped by that one moment—it was built over years of conversations, support, and mutual respect. My mom knew who I was, just like I knew her. We weren’t perfect, but we didn’t need to be.

The weight of that final moment started to lift.

Some relationships aren’t about single moments. They’re about the years of love and care shared between you. I realized I couldn’t let one bad moment erase all of that. No final conversation could take away the bond we had. I could forgive myself.

And I know I’m lucky. Lucky that my friend’s words resonated with me, that I could accept them and start to heal. I also know not everyone’s situation is as simple. For some, the weight of final moments stays, and the guilt and anger is harder to shake. But I hope, with time, it becomes easier to see that a relationship is so much more than just the last moment.