I noticed her posture change. The tension in her shoulders, which I had always assumed was just a result of age, seemed to melt away. She laughed more freely. She started sharing her fears about aging and her pride in the small garden she had cultivated. It wasn't the gifts that changed her; it was the validation. For a month, she wasn't just a matriarch or a caregiver; she was a woman being seen and heard by the person she loved most.
I pulled the car over. I turned off the engine. In the sudden quiet, she finally looked at me. Her eyes were wet, but her voice was iron. After a month of showering my mother with love ...
That is the antidote to erasure.