2 a.m. — The moment I will never forget

I woke up thirsty.

As I passed through the living room, I opened the camera feed on my phone out of habit, just to make sure everything was okay.

And then…

I froze.

On the screen, Emily’s bedroom door slowly opened.

A figure entered.

Thin body.
Gray hair.
Slow, unsteady steps.

I covered my mouth, my heart pounding, when I realized:

It was my mother-in-law… Margaret Mitchell.

She walked straight to Emily’s bed.
Gently lifted the blanket.

And then lay down next to her granddaughter.

As if… it were her own bed.

Emily shifted, pushed toward the edge of the mattress. She frowned in her sleep but didn’t wake up.

And I…

I cried without making a single sound.

A woman who spent her life on her son

My mother-in-law was 78 years old.

She became a widow when Daniel was only seven.

For more than forty years, she never remarried.

She worked whatever jobs she could find:

— Cleaning
— Laundry
— Selling food in the mornings

All to raise her son and send him to medical school.

Daniel once told me that when he was a child, there were days she ate nothing but dry bread… and still found money to buy him meat and fish.

When Daniel went to college, she still sent him envelopes with 20 or 30 dollars, carefully folded.

For herself…

She lived with a level of austerity that broke your heart.