Funerals are meant to be the final goodbye. But for Anna, that day became the start of a nightmare that shattered everything she thought she knew about life and death.

The hall was heavy with silence, broken only by quiet sobs and the rustle of clothes. The scent of lilies mixed with the faint aroma of burning candles. People approached one by one to say farewell to the young woman who had been laughing and making plans just yesterday — and now lay motionless, covered with a white shroud.

Anna stood beside her, barely feeling her legs. Her heart was gripped by cold, merciless claws of grief. Doctors had spoken of a rare brain inflammation, explaining that the chance of saving her daughter had been almost nonexistent. But what mother’s heart could ever truly accept such a verdict?

When her turn came, Anna clutched the cold edges of the coffin. Through trembling lips and tears she whispered:
— I can’t live without you… do you hear me? I can’t…

She bent down to place one final kiss on her daughter’s cold forehead — and then she saw something that made her blood freeze. A tiny, almost imperceptible flicker of the eyelid. So slight that anyone else might have blamed it on a trick of the light. But Anna knew she wasn’t imagining it — she saw the lashes tremble again.

Her heart slammed against her ribs so hard it hurt. A scream caught in her throat. She glanced at her husband, at the priest, but words wouldn’t come. She had only one thought — to make sure this wasn’t an illusion. She gently touched her daughter’s cheek… and felt it — not cold stone, but the faintest trace of warmth.

— She’s alive! — burst from her lips, but instead of joy, the room filled with murmurs of disbelief. Several people rushed to the coffin, some called for doctors, others tried to calm Anna, convinced that her grief had driven her to madness.

Moments later, the door burst open and a paramedic rushed in, still wearing his outdoor jacket. He leaned over the body, checked for a pulse, and then his face went pale.
— Get her to intensive care! Now! — he shouted, and the helpers quickly prepared a stretcher.

The crowd stepped back. Some crossed themselves, others whispered, “A miracle.” But for Anna, it wasn’t a miracle — it was a second life she had torn from death with her own hands.

Later, doctors would explain that the young woman had suffered an extremely rare case of deep catalepsy, where the body mimics death. But those words meant nothing to her mother. She knew only this — if she hadn’t insisted on saying goodbye at the very last moment, if she had turned away for even a second, the coffin would already have been sealed…

Now Anna couldn’t take her eyes off her daughter, lying in a hospital bed with her chest slowly rising and falling. Tears streamed down her face, but they were filled with gratitude instead of despair.

And everyone who had witnessed that day would remember how death had already reached out — but a mother’s love had forced its grip to loosen. It was the moment when the impossible became reality.