I often felt she stared at things but saw something else. Broken people do that. My mother’s most repeated advice to me was this: “Find one person you can trust in your life.” She had been mine for my turbulent childhood, and I tried to be hers in the years she had left. After she died, I felt heavy all the time. My breathing was labored, my posture stooped. I worried that I was ill. I realize now this was merely the weight of love that had nowhere to go.
