A Son’s Final Words: Joel Simon’s Mother’s Day Tribute Becomes a Heartbreaking Farewell.

August 1, 2025 | PNG Online News |

ON May 11, 2025, Joel Simon marked Mother’s Day with a quiet, beautiful gesture — a photograph shared online of him beside his mother, both smiling, their bond unmistakable.

Alongside it, he wrote a heartfelt message — a son’s tribute to the woman who gave him life, raised him with care, and stood beside him through every season.

“Being pregnant for nine months, giving birth, and raising me until now — Mum, I owe you more than words can ever express. The duties you’ve played in my life are countless and immeasurable. All I can truly say is, thank you.”

He ended his post with a prayer: “May God continue to bless you with good health and protect you, as He always has.”

At the time, his words were a tender expression of gratitude — the kind so often felt yet rarely spoken aloud. They captured what many sons feel but few say: behind every strength we carry is a mother’s sacrifice.

But just weeks later, tragedy struck. Joel Simon was murdered in a senseless act of violence in the heart of Goroka Town, Eastern Highlands Province. A promising life — that of a devoted son, a loyal friend, and a determined university student — was taken in an instant. His journey, once so full of promise, was left unfinished.

Now, the Mother’s Day message that once brought his mother joy has become something entirely different: a final goodbye.

She returns to those words — once written to comfort her — and reads them again and again. But where there was once warmth, there is now ache. Where there was love, there is now longing. The tribute that celebrated her has become a lifeline to the son she will never hold again.

“A mother’s love is beyond measure,” Joel wrote. But so too is a mother’s grief.

His final words now stand not only as a tribute, but as a memorial — a love letter etched in time, a cry of affection that arrived just before silence. It is a reminder of life’s fragility, of how joy can be shattered by tragedy, and of the unbreakable bond between a mother and her child.

Joel Simon was just 21 years old — a third-year student at the University of Goroka. He had dreams, ambition, and a heart full of hope. Now, those dreams have been buried with him.

And yet, through his final message, Joel speaks still. He speaks of love, he speaks of gratitude, and he speaks of a son who never imagined that Mother’s Day would be his last.

And somewhere in the quiet of night, his mother holds that message to her heart — reading it once more, as though it might bring him back.

But it won’t. It never will.

Rest in Peace Joel Simon💔😭

📷Joel Simon and his loving and caring mother.