Then one evening, my phone rang. Her voice trembled on the other end, caught somewhere between laughter and tears. She whispered, “Mom, we’re adopting.”
I dropped the dish I was washing. It shattered in the sink, but I didn’t feel a thing. My hands were still dripping wet when I sat down on the edge of the couch, stunned silent.
When they placed him in my arms, he didn’t cry. He just stared right into me like he was trying to figure me out. Then, slowly, he reached out and wrapped his tiny hand around my finger, holding it tightly as if he already knew I belonged to him.
That was the moment everything changed. He wasn’t ours by blood, but by something deeper. I don’t know what to call it, but I’ve felt it every day since.
Four years later, last year, my daughter and her husband were gone.
A truck ran a red light while they were driving home from a weekend trip. It was one phone call. Just one. The kind that comes too late in the night and takes everything from you.
And just like that, I was 64 and a mother again.
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