Mom's recurring taxi booking, popping up on the screen at twenty past five every Tuesday

At twenty past five on Tuesday morning, a line of yellow text jumped up on the left-hand screen: SCHEDULED — RECURRING. Pickup: alley 17. Customer: Mom.

I sit on the dispatch desk at a small taxi company, the early shift, half past four to half past twelve, and have for eleven years. The room at that hour is cold from the air conditioner, and the smell of ginger tea rises from my flask. That yellow line was something I made myself, long ago. Five years earlier I had typed a recurring ride into the system, every Tuesday and Friday at half past five, to pick Mom up at the mouth of her alley and take her to the park by the river in time for her exercise class. She was seventy-three then, liked the front seat because she got carsick, and every time she got in she told the driver the same thing: "Slowly, please. I'm old, there's no hurry."

That day was a Tuesday, eighteen days after the funeral. It was my first early shift back, and the system had no idea what had happened.

If you've ever received a calendar reminder, an automated call, a notification saying "it's Grandma's birthday today" from a machine that doesn't know the person is gone, you know the feeling: not pain out loud, just everything stalling for one beat. This is about one morning like that, and one small thing I did differently from what I'd meant to do.

I'm not writing this to say you should keep things or delete them. Some people wipe everything the first night and feel it was right. Some keep it all for a year. Neither is wrong, and the one who keeps it longer doesn't love more.

The cancel button was right under my finger

I moved the mouse to the yellow line. Two small buttons sat to its right: "Dispatch" and "Cancel schedule." Press "Cancel schedule" and the system asks once more, in a grey box: "Cancel this entire recurring ride? This cannot be undone." I had seen that grey box hundreds of times, usually because a customer had moved house, changed work hours, relocated. I had never really read the words "entire ride."

Khôi, who'd been with us two weeks, sat at the next desk and leaned over to look at my screen.

"Is this recurring booking called Mom a glitch? The system's asking if it should dispatch."

"Not a glitch. Leave it."

"But a customer called Mom..."

"Yes. My mom."

Khôi turned back to his own screen. He said nothing more, and I was grateful to him for saying nothing more.

At twenty-four past five the right-hand column showed: Mr. Tám accepted. Mr. Tám had driven this run from the start. He knew she sat in front, knew she kept a cloth bag with two bottles of water at her feet, knew she didn't like music on. I watched the cursor sitting right on the "Cancel schedule" button. I had a few minutes to press it before the car reached the mouth of the alley. I didn't press it.

Strictly speaking, it was my finger that didn't press, and I decided nothing. I want to tell this part accurately: it wasn't that I weighed it up and chose to keep it. I sat there, eyes on the words, hand on the mouse, like someone standing outside a shop that has already closed and not yet turning away.

I had assumed the reason was that I wasn't ready. That sounded right, and because it would fit anyone anywhere, I didn't trust it much. Later, looking back, I saw that what stopped me was the words "entire ride." That ride wasn't only a fare. To me it was the last appointment left between Mom and a specific hour of the week: Tuesday half past five, Friday half past five. Her week hung from those two nails. Pressing cancel meant pulling out a nail, and the only person who should have been able to pull it out was Mom, by saying one sentence: "That's enough, I'll skip class." Mom no longer said that sentence.

There was something else nagging at me, smaller and truer: Mom hated putting people out. If I let the ride go to alley 17, Mr. Tám would drive a fare with no passenger, lose five minutes, and have it deducted from one shift. She would have said, if she knew: "Don't make people drive for nothing."

At half past five my headset buzzed. Not a customer. It was Mr. Tám's radio, his voice the same as every morning.

"Tuyền? I'm at alley 17."

"Yes... Uncle, I haven't had a chance to..."

"I know. I'll park here five minutes, rest my legs. No meter."

"Okay."

"Drink some water, kid."

He clicked off. On the map, Mr. Tám's green dot stood still at alley 17 for exactly five minutes. I don't know whether he looked down to the end of the alley where Mom used to wait, or just shut his eyes and rested for real. I didn't ask and he never said, until now.

Five thirty-five, the first call of the day. A man needed a car to the airport.

"Good morning, how can I help?"

My voice came out exactly as usual, round, even, lifting a little at the end of the sentence. That scared me more than the cancel button. That voice knew nothing at all, and I was the one using it.

At twenty to six my personal phone buzzed. An automated message from the company, sent to whoever had booked the ride: "Thank you, Mom, for riding with us. Please rate your trip." Below it, five grey stars. The number on the booking was mine, so it came to me, exactly as I had set it up five years before. I looked at those five grey stars for a long time. I didn't rate it, and I didn't delete it. It stayed there for days.

What Mr. Tám did that day was give me some room. He didn't advise, didn't ask, didn't solve anything for me. I took one thing away from it for myself: not everything has to be dealt with on the day the system asks.

How many things on my phone were running under Mom's name?

That evening I sat on the edge of my bed, opened my phone, and in twenty minutes deleted five things. An alarm at five sharp that I'd set to call Mom awake before the car. A pinned name at the top of my contacts. A birthday that reminded me every year. Two notes of reminders for her.

When I finished I felt clean. The cleanness of someone who has just wiped down the kitchen at eleven at night, hands still wet, most of the lights already off.

I don't regret deleting. A few of those things I still think should have gone. What nags at me is that I did it with the hand of the evening, a hand that wanted to be done. On Friday morning, at five sharp, I sat at the dispatch desk and there was no chime. I sat watching that hour pass in silence and understood that the chime, annoying for years, had also been what told me Mom was still part of the week. At twenty past five the yellow line jumped up again. This time I pressed "Dispatch," and Mr. Tám parked at alley 17 for five minutes again, no meter again, and said nothing again.

I'd thought I was tidying. Really I was avoiding the stall. Each thing that ran by itself was one more stall, and deleting in bulk was a way to stop stalling. Wanting it to stop hurting is so reasonable that nobody could blame you. The only trouble is that deleting all at once leaves you no say in which goes first, which goes later, and which one you want to say goodbye to with your own hand.

A few weeks later I read a piece about signing a paperwork form after a funeral, and saw that my grey box was a relative of that form: small in size, heavier than its size.

On Saturday my sister called.

"Are you still keeping Mom's taxi booking?"

"Yes. I deleted five things, but not the ride."

"I wiped everything the first night. Every time it popped up I wanted to throw the phone."

"I know."

"So you just let it sting every Tuesday morning?"

I couldn't answer straight away, because I didn't know either.

My sister deleted fast because it stung. I went slowly because I was afraid of forgetting, and being afraid of forgetting is a kind of sting too. We both love Mom, and we use opposite methods. I used to think hers was wrong. Now I think maybe neither is, and that we're both equally tired.

Then I tried it a different way.

The first time I sat down to write the list of what was left, it was longer than I'd thought: nine things, when I had only remembered four. Writing it felt a little heavier than when I started, then it eased once I underlined the lightest one. After a week I had stopped one: the reminder to "call Mom before lunch," on a Sunday afternoon at the kitchen table. Some people finish and feel a little hollow, then it passes. I sat longer than I'd meant to, not crying, just sitting. Both were fine, I think.

On a busy day you need only two things: write one name and one date. You don't have to do it all, and it doesn't have to be on the exact day.

At the step about choosing the lightest thing, I got it wrong once too. That Sunday I meant to stop the ride first, thinking to do the hardest thing first and be done, like pulling a rotten tooth. I opened it, my hand on the button. My finger shook and I closed it. All I took from that was this: the hardest thing is not the thing that should go first, and it isn't something to prove I'm strong with.

The Tuesday of the third week

I chose the Tuesday of the third week to stop the ride, because I knew that hour was the hardest, and if it was going to be hard I wanted it to happen when I chose, not when the system did.

At five past five, before the yellow line could jump up, I opened the recurring booking, pressed "Cancel schedule," and for the first time read the grey box properly: "Cancel this entire recurring ride? This cannot be undone." I read "entire" twice. Then I pressed confirm.

The word did nothing to me. It was just a word. It had taken me three weeks to learn that.

At the next desk, Khôi said without looking up from his screen:

"The booking called Mom is gone."

"I cancelled it."

"Okay." He paused. "That day I wanted to ask if you needed me to press it for you, but I didn't dare."

"I can press it myself."

I radioed Mr. Tám before he could get to his car.

"Uncle, about my mom's booking, I've cancelled it."

"Yes. I saw it vanish on the system."

A pause.

"Uncle, if some morning you happen to drive past alley 17..."

"I drive past it all the time. I've always taken that road."

At half past five the left-hand screen held only the map and its green dots. I looked at it. Mr. Tám's dot went past alley 17 and did not stop. On the screen it slowed for exactly one beat, though it might be that the spot is always snarled at the lights. I don't know. I left it as it was.

If you've tried it and the list just sits there

There are two places where I think this tends not to work, and I've stood in the first.

You finish the list, look at it, and can't underline a single thing, every item weighing the same as the next. Or you underline one, set a date, and when the date comes your hand won't press. Neither means you've failed the exercise. Pushing the date back a week isn't losing, and pushing it back twice is fine. If you keep pushing it back and find the list getting heavier each day instead of lighter, then maybe this needs one more person sitting with you, someone close or someone with professional training, more than it needs a pen.

The second place is that the whole thing feels odd to you. Going through a list of alarms when someone you love has just died sounds like doing paperwork for grief. If that isn't your way, don't force it. Some people leave everything in place for a year and open it up only when one day they feel ready. And if what's left behind is handwriting or objects rather than buttons, this piece about Mom's measurement notebook and questions to write may sit closer to you.

On the Tuesday after that, at half past four, I sat down at the dispatch desk, put on the headset and poured ginger tea into the flask lid. At twenty past five the screen showed nothing. I looked at the map. The first call came in at thirty-one minutes past five.

"Good morning, how can I help?"

When to seek professional support

This article is the story of a taxi dispatcher about a recurring booking after her mother died, with one small thing to try. It cannot replace treatment, and I am not promising that doing it will make the stalls fewer.

But here are a few signs you should bring to a professional, rather than carrying them alone:

• Moments like these come thick and fast for many weeks, instead of now and then
• You can't eat, can't sleep, or can't manage everyday tasks for weeks after the loss
• You feel tired for a long time, or chest heaviness or breathlessness keeps coming back, so get checked first to rule out a physical cause
• You think about hurting yourself, even if it is just a passing thought

The last point cannot wait. Speak with someone you trust, today. The Emergency Support page explains what holds true in moments like that.

Talking with a professional about a loss does not mean you are grieving the wrong way. It just means one more person helping you carry it.