I grew up poor, and I blamed my mom for it.
Years later, on my child’s birthday, she showed up carrying something from my childhood.
I snapped, “Take this trash and leave.”
She didn’t argue. She didn’t cry. She just smiled.
Recently, my mom passed away. After the funeral, my aunt handed me that same sweater. “Did you ever notice it?” she asked.
I looked closer—and froze.
Inside the collar, stitched by hand, were my initials. Imperfect, uneven, like she’d sewn them late at night with tired hands.
“She fixed that sweater every winter,” my aunt said. “Let it out as you grew, patched holes. You never noticed because she always made sure it fit.”
As a child, I hated that sweater. I hated the secondhand shoes, the empty fridge, the homemade cakes. I blamed her for everything.
Inside the hem, I found dozens of tiny stitches—dates, little notes, memories she couldn’t afford to write in a journal. First day of school. Sick days. Snow days. Dreams of being “big and important.”
She worked two jobs, skipped meals, mended clothes, gave me everything while asking for nothing.
That night, I held the sweater and cried like I’d never cried before.
The next morning, I showed it to my child. I told them about their grandmother’s love—silent, tireless, enduring.
Love doesn’t always announce itself. Sometimes, it just keeps showing up.
The richest thing I ever had wasn’t money. It was her.
And I’ll try to love my child half as well as she loved me.
