The forest around Angkor Wat has a way of holding secrets.
At dawn, when the crowds are still asleep and the ancient stones breathe quietly in the cool air, the forest feels alive — not loud, not demanding, but listening. I learned that on a morning I will never forget, when three simple words echoed through the trees and settled deep into my heart.
“I’m so sorry, Mummy.”
The voice was small. Fragile. The kind of voice that doesn’t yet know how heavy the world can be.
I had been walking slowly along a shaded path just beyond the temple ruins, following the soft calls of monkeys waking for the day. Sunlight filtered through towering trees, painting the ground with gold. Then I heard crying — not loud, not dramatic — just the quiet, broken kind that tells you something has already gone wrong.
Near a fallen stone wall, I saw them.
A young child sat on the ground, his knees pulled to his chest, tears tracing clean lines through the dust on his cheeks. His mother knelt beside him, one hand resting on his back, the other trembling slightly as she tried to steady herself. Her eyes were tired in a way that spoke of sleepless nights and worries that never truly end.
He looked up at her again and whispered it once more.
“I’m so sorry, Mummy.”
At first, I didn’t understand what he was apologizing for. He was so young. Too young to carry guilt like that. But children often blame themselves for pain they didn’t cause.
The mother pulled him into her arms, rocking him gently as the forest watched in silence. A nearby monkey paused on a branch, head tilted, as if even the animals sensed the weight of the moment.
Later, through quiet gestures and broken words, I learned pieces of their story.
They had lost someone — a father, a husband — not long ago. Life after that loss had been hard, uncertain, and frightening. The child believed, in his innocent heart, that if he had behaved better, asked for less, complained less, maybe things would be different. Maybe his mummy wouldn’t cry so much. Maybe the world wouldn’t feel so heavy.
That is the cruel misunderstanding of childhood — thinking love means responsibility for pain.
The mother brushed tears from her face and whispered back to him, words meant only for her son but powerful enough to reach anyone who has ever loved deeply.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
But grief doesn’t listen to logic. It sits quietly and waits for moments like this to surface.
The forest around Angkor Wat seemed to lean in closer. The ancient stones, weathered by centuries of war, devotion, and loss, had seen this before. Empires fall. Families break. Love remains.
As they stood and began to walk, hand in hand, the boy glanced back once — his eyes meeting mine for just a second. There was sadness there, yes, but also something else: relief. As if saying those words out loud had lifted a small piece of the burden from his chest.
