Her brimming tears told me she had held me in her heart these many years, just as I had held her, in such an odd but certain way, two mothers of the same beautiful boy. I freed a hand to wrap my arm around her shoulder, and this stranger who was not a stranger collapsed into the embrace. For a long moment we both disappeared into the brutal ache of all we had given and lost, clinging to each other as if we might be torn apart by a sudden gust of wind.
This is to truly know someone. To make space for their own lived experience that is messy and tangled up in your own. To allow human connection. This is the stuff we are made for.
