My mother sat at the small sewing table near the window, the one she loved because the light always fell just right there. Afternoon sun poured through the thin lace curtains, dust floating in the air like it had nowhere else to be. She had pulled a chair close for me, her knee touching mine so I wouldn’t feel alone while I struggled.
She was teaching me how to crochet.
Lavender yarn spilled across the table, soft and forgiving. My fingers weren’t. I kept messing it up—loops too tight, stitches slipping free, the pattern collapsing no matter how hard I tried. Frustration welled up fast, hot and humiliating. I remember blinking hard, afraid I’d cry.
“I can’t,” I said quietly.
She didn’t sigh. Didn’t correct me sharply. She laughed instead—warm and bright, the sound that always made the room feel safer. She leaned down, kissed the top of my head, and gently took my hands in hers.
“Yes, you can,” she said. “Mistakes don’t mean failure. They mean you’re learning.”
Her fingers guided mine again, slow and patient. She untangled every knot without a trace of annoyance, even though it must have taken forever. She stayed with me until my hands stopped shaking, until the rhythm made sense, until the yarn finally began to look like something real.
That was how she loved me.
Never rushed. Never conditional.
She made space for me to grow.
I was fourteen the next time the memory shifted.
Our house was filled with fabric—ivory satin draped over chairs, lace spread carefully across the table. My mother was finishing a wedding gown she’d sewn entirely by hand. Every bead had been stitched with care. Every seam perfect. When the bride tried it on and stepped into the sunlight, the dress shimmered like it had been made for a dream.
Photos were taken. Then shared. Then shared again.
By morning, strangers were talking about my mother online.
A television show invited her for an interview. She was nervous—she never liked attention—but she agreed. And she insisted I come with her.
I remember sitting beside her in the studio, heart pounding, terrified I didn’t belong there. She squeezed my hand before the cameras rolled, her thumb brushing mine in reassurance.
During the interview, they praised her talent, her skill, her patience. And then she said, without hesitation, “My daughter helped me with the beading.”
I froze.
“She’s better than she knows,” my mother added. “One day, she’ll be better than me.”
She didn’t say it like a hope. She said it like a truth.
Afterward, we bought ice cream in the parking lot. Chocolate melted down my fingers. I laughed too hard and smeared it across my cheek, and she wiped it away, still smiling.
“You’re my brave girl,” she said. “No matter what.”
Everything steady in me came from her.
Every moment I endured without breaking.
Every time I chose patience over fear.
She had been my voice before I lost mine.
My safety before the world turned cruel.
And losing her didn’t just take my mother.
It took the only person who had ever made me feel like I was enough without trying.
And now—here I was. Standing in the center of death’s arena, the smell of freshly turned soil clinging to my hair, mud caked to my ankles, hands trembling.
