“I still wait for her voice.”

These were the first words that escaped Mrs. Thapa’s trembling lips as she sat on the edge of her daughter’s empty bed. The sheets remained untouched since the last time Manisha slept in them during her short visit to Patna just two weeks ago. A few strands of hair still clung to her hairbrush. Her perfume still lingered in the room. And her mother—still clung to hope that this was all some mistake.

“She always messaged me when she landed,” she said softly, her eyes fixed on the small phone clutched tightly in her hand. “That morning, she promised to call after the flight. I kept checking. The phone never lit up again.”

Every mother worries. But this was different. When news of a plane crash in Ahmedabad flashed across the television, something in Mrs. Thapa broke. Not panic—just a terrifying stillness. She tried calling Manisha. No answer. Again. No signal. Then she saw the airline name. Air India. Her daughter’s airline. Her world collapsed.

“I screamed,” she recalled, “but no one could explain what had happened. I kept calling the helpline. I begged them, ‘Tell me my daughter is alive. Please, I’ll do anything. Just say her name is not on that list.’”

But her name was.

In the hours that followed, her house filled with people—neighbors, relatives, journalists. They brought words. They brought tears. But no one could bring Manisha back.

“I didn’t want to believe them,” she said, her hands trembling as she unfolded Manisha’s last note from her suitcase. “She had written, ‘Ma, save this letter for when I get promoted. I’ll buy you a gold saree one day.’ I was saving it for joy. I never thought I’d be reading it at her funeral.”

She walked to the living room where Manisha’s framed photo stood on a table. A garland of fresh marigolds hung around the smiling face. It was the same smile Manisha wore when she first got her uniform. That day, her mother had cried too—but out of pride.

“She didn’t come from wealth,” she said. “We struggled to afford her training. Some days, I stitched clothes to pay her tuition. She skipped meals to save for her flight exams. But she never complained. She always said, ‘One day, Ma, I’ll make you fly with me.’”

That day never came.

Instead, Mrs. Thapa stood at the airport, not to board a plane—but to receive a coffin.
“They told me not to look,” she whispered. “That the body was not in good condition. But I had to. I had to see my child. No matter what. I had to be her mother one last time.”

Her voice cracked as she described the moment the coffin opened. The body was cold. Covered. But unmistakably her daughter.

“I touched her forehead,” she said, tears now flowing freely. “And I said, ‘You flew so high, beta. But why didn’t you land safely this time?’”

Grief, they say, comes in waves. But for Manisha’s mother, it never recedes. Every item in the house reminds her of her daughter. The teacup she left in the sink. Her half-finished diary. A pair of shoes waiting by the door. But perhaps the most haunting reminder is the silence. The silence after the final goodbye.

“I used to scold her for not calling me enough,” she says with a sad smile. “Now I would give anything just to hear her say ‘Ma’ once more.”

The world has moved on. The investigation continues. Officials talk of protocols, engines, and black boxes. But for this mother, no report will ever explain why her child—her only daughter—was taken from her so cruelly.

“She had a future,” she cried. “She wanted to get married. She wanted to build me a house away from the city noise. She had so many dreams. How do I live knowing none of them will come true?”

Despite the agony, Mrs. Thapa speaks with quiet strength. She insists on setting up a small scholarship fund in Manisha’s name—for girls in Patna who want to pursue aviation but can’t afford it.

“She didn’t fly alone,” she says. “She carried our dreams with her. And I want those dreams to still live, even if she cannot.”

At night, she still leaves the hallway light on—just in case. She still checks her phone before bed—just in case. And sometimes, in the half-sleep between memory and longing, she swears she hears the chime of a message.

It never comes.

But a mother can dream. A mother can hope.
And a mother can remember—with every breath, every heartbeat, and every sky that stretches endlessly above her broken home.

Because in that sky, she knows—her daughter still flies.