Today is Mother’s Day. There are still so many emotions that I will not or cannot unlock. I planted some tomato seeds in a small pot on my windowsill. This seemed like a decent way to remember the days I spent by her side drinking sun tea while she “played in the dirt,” as she liked to say. When I was little, she forced me to run errands by myself to make sure I didn’t develop her anxieties, her bouts with agoraphobia. She loved to watch sailboats. Whenever she saw a motorboat, she’d crinkle her nose and call it a ‘stinkpotter’. I remember the way she’d stand in the kitchen and say she wasn’t just going to turn over a new leaf but a whole tree.

This is dedicated to everyone who has lost their mothers. I try to find solace in these instructions from Epictetus: do not say something is lost, only that it is returned.