The three years that passed were rough for all of them, maybe that was how life decided to prepare them for the future.
Hyacinth who didn't believe in love was completely swept off her feet, and Patricia had come to terms that her father was never going to accept her.
Nelly on the other hand had lost her mother. The calls, the weekend gifts, and the usual visits came to an end when she died.
For Nelly, her mother had been her first true friend, her gist partner, her companion, her everything.
She took the news the hardest, not her father, who was her husband, or her sons. She felt like she had just a part of her.
She had lost her mother during the break after a promotional exam. She had no idea her mother was going to die, she had come home to spend time with her mother along with her siblings.
Everything had been Merry at their house, the atmosphere was satisfying and peaceful at the same time.
They had all gone to sleep that night, only to wake up to bad news the next morning. While the children were already out, ready to have breakfast, they still hadn't heard anything about their parents.
The second son was the first to go to their room, to call his parents out for breakfast, instead, he was met with the most horrific scene in his whole life.
On the bed was his father hugging his mother and crying as she lay lifeless in his arms. He quickly rushed and started shaking her ad if he could wake her up.
The siblings wondered what could happen if they were inside the room. Nelly was the first to stand up because she was hungry, and her elder brother followed.
They also met a very heartbreaking scene, nobody needed to tell them what had happened, while the others were grieving and unable to fathom that their mother and beloved wife had passed, Nelly stood by the door frame in silence.
She knew her mother had died, but she stood there oblivious to how she was going to live without her mother, without her support, her everything, without her comfort, and most of all without her very first friend.
The Merry atmosphere was soon replaced with gloom, everything took a three-sixty turn. After coming to her realization, she cried her eyes out.
Not only her but the entire family, even the house workers were traumatized by the sudden death.
She had invited her friends to her mother's burial, they couldn't believe the news and they also burst into tears.
She hadn't lived well with the news half the break as the girls had gone back to the dorm to accompany her.
One day, Nelly and Patricia were in the room, the others had gone to the grocery store for supplies. Suddenly Nelly remembered that Patricia had no parents, 'she must be looking at me with pity, I wonder how she must have felt.
Patricia who was unaware of Nelly's train of thoughts was surprised to hear the cracked voice of someone who hadn't spoken in days.
"How does it feel having no one to call mother?". Patricia sighed and sat down on Nelly's bed wrapping her in a tight hug.
"It was tough at first, but u have learned to live with it," Pat said, "I don't think I can ever come to accept it, she died so suddenly!" Nelly said, bursting into tears.
After a few more words of comfort, Patricia finally made Nelly find meaning in the death of her mother, accepting her death, but not forgetting her.
Her conversation with Patricia struck a chord in her heart. With the little piece of advice she got from Pat, she was able to move forward and embrace the fact that her mother had passed.
Audrey seemed to be the one with the hardest life among all of them, she was treading on thin ice, questioning the longevity of the pension plan.
She knew it was almost done and that she just needed to hold on a little longer, regardless she tried to shuffle her time between studying and working.
It wasn't an easy task for her, because she knew how much stress she was going through.
Because they could no longer spend from the pension plan for Audrey to finish college, they had to stop taking out it for making payments.
She didn't even know the extremity of the situation till her mother explained it. She explained the fact that whatever money they earned would go to the payment of the bills, but the problem was the income was not just enough.
This pressured Audrey, making her take a job to try and sustain her mother. Audrey couldn't watch as her mother worked and worked till she started getting wrinkles to cover the bills.
She had gotten home to spend the last few weeks of the break with her mother because she had spent most of her time in the dormitory because it was closer to her workplace.
The hopes she had came crumbling down when she heard the bad news, "baby! you are back!" Georgia said huffing like she was caught doing something wrong. Audrey already knew her mother was lying, her tardiness couldn't stand the facade so she said, "spill mom, what are you hiding?".
" Everything is going to change now honey…" Georgia said, "what do you mean everything is going to change mom?" Audrey said, panic written on her face.
After a few minutes of hesitation, Georgia burst into tears, "you won't be able to finish college ", Audrey blinked, trying to process the news. ' for that to happen, it only meant one thing, the pension plan was exhausted!
It pained Audrey to hear such news because she had come so far, she was so close to graduating, she thought that she had prepared herself for this moment just in case it did happen, but she never thought it would be this soon.