She came to every school play, sat front row, and clapped like I was the only kid there. She never missed a parent-teacher meeting. If there wasn’t a ramp, she complained until there was. If someone talked over her, she cut in and made them repeat themselves to her face.
On my first day of school, she wheeled me to the door, fixed my backpack straps, and said, “You’re braver than you feel. Go prove it.”
At home, we did homework at the kitchen table. She taught me how to cook safely. When I cried over friends or crushes or grades, she didn’t call me dramatic.
I never felt abandoned.
“Your heart doesn’t know it’s small,” she’d say. “So it hurts. We respect that. Then we move on.”
I always knew I was adopted. She told me early.
“One night, someone left you at my door,” she said. “I opened it. From that second, you were mine.”
I never felt abandoned. I felt chosen.
When I got into college, she cried in the car and tried to laugh it off.
On move-in day, she rolled around my tiny dorm, arranging everything. Before she left, she squeezed my hand.
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