You can take the same route, but not the same journey.

The conductor brushed past me as our train ground to a halt, opening the door. Wiping the railings on either side with seemingly effortless showmanship, she knelt down and unfolded the extending metal steps. I quickly passed the luggage down to my father; I had been on this route often enough to know the brevity of the stop, that the height of the platform was too low for even the steps to reach it. The conductors were already signalling departure as I myself jumped down.

Glancing around, nothing much had changed: the main building could use a new coat of paint and the ground around it was anything but level. I heard a greeting being called out and saw a figure coming towards us: checked shirt tucked into high waisted trousers, oversized spectacles balanced precariously on the bridge of his nose, my uncle ambled towards us, much like every year. Yet, as he neared, I noted the new lines on his face; his smile did not quite reach his eyes.

The ride to Alnashi was sombre, strained. Even the land seemed bleached, the earth riven with cracks – the sun had been too kind to the region of late. Nearing the settlement, I saw that more houses dotted the areas where previously there had been woodland. A cat lazed in the shade as fowl wandered the dirt roads between wooden houses, their colour leached by the summer.

As we pulled up to the house I could see that my grandfather had set about heating the banya, wisps of smoke escaping the chimney. Inside, reunions were brief, tense. There were no home baked goods to greet us. We deposited our luggage and headed back to the car. The neighbour stopped us, passing on her best wishes.

As we drove up to the hospital, we saw the children gambolling on the streets, as I had, once. The tiles lining the floor of the reception were cracked, faded; a sense of hushed quiet pervaded the entire building. A nurse greeted us, leading us upstairs to replace our shoes with plastic socks and then, finally, we were allowed into the ward.

It was larger and lighter than I had expected, emptier as well. Pale, patterned curtains separated the beds. Halfway down the room we stopped; there she lay, a frail shadow of her former self. This was not the woman who was first to rise and last to sleep, who held the entire family together. This was the woman who had given everything of herself to it.