ADVERTISEMENT
She didn’t argue. She didn’t cry. She simply nodded, gathered her children, and quietly began packing their belongings. I mistook her calm for acceptance, never realizing there was something far deeper behind it. A few days later, I found a letter resting on the kitchen table—one she had written to my son before he passed. My hands shook as I unfolded it.
In the letter, she thanked him for persuading me to let them stay all those years. She wrote about how grateful she was that he had paid rent every month without ever telling me, just so I wouldn’t feel taken advantage of. Every choice she made, every quiet sacrifice, had been out of respect for me and for my son’s memory. As I read her words, sorrow and shame washed over me at once. I realized how unfairly I had judged her.
ADVERTISEMENT
