“Just So You Know, We’re Using Your House for Christmas,” My Daughter-in-Law Texted — She Never Asked

colored lights as he stared in sleepy wonder. I thought of my husband’s arm around my shoulders, the way he’d squeeze once, quietly, in those small moments that said: We made it. We got here.

For a moment, grief rose up, sudden and sharp. It wasn’t for my husband alone, but for all the versions of myself I’d been and all the ways I’d made myself small continue reading …