My own daughter left me a breezy little voicemail saying, “Mom, you don’t need to come this summer. Kevin thinks it’s better if we keep the lake house for our family,”

I grew up outside Augusta, raised by a mother who believed idle hands invited trouble and a father who showed love through repaired hinges, sharpened pencils, and making sure there was gas in the car before anyone noticed it was low. By nineteen, I could bake biscuits, check a fever without a thermometer, fold fitted sheets, balance a checkbook, and calm a frightened person with nothing but my voice.

That last skill made me a good nurse.

Later, it made me a very convenient mother.

I retired at sixty-two, not because I was tired, but because Henry got sick, and I wanted every minute he had left to belong to us.

Pancreatic cancer does not bargain. It does not care about retirement plans, grandchildren, unfinished kitchens, or promises made under porch lights. It arrives like a locked door slamming somewhere deep inside your life, and then one by one, the other doors begin to close too.

Henry lasted fourteen months.