What My Mother's Hands Taught Me

My mother has never been a person of many words about the things that matter most. She shows you instead.

Mom · 1998

I learned to fold dough by standing at her elbow for a decade, not by being taught in any way I could point to. I learned what forgiveness looked like by watching her set a second plate for someone who had wronged her the week before.

Things I know now that I didn't know I was learning then

1. Patience isn't the absence of frustration — it's continuing anyway.
2. You can love someone and still not understand them.
3. Some inheritances aren't things. They're gestures.

I don't know if I've become her. I know I've become someone who reaches for her recipes without the recipe.