I didn’t realize, at eighteen, that love can look like “too much effort” from someone
you think will live forever. I only understood after she was gone,
when grief hardened into quiet regret and the cardigan became a painful relic I couldn’t touch.
Life layered itself over that moment — diplomas, wedding photos,
baby blankets — but beneath it all, that folded red wool waited, patient as memory.
When Emma slipped it on, the past stepped gently into the room.
My grandmother’s words — “may this keep you warm when
I no longer can” — wrapped around both of us. The cardigan stopped
being a symbol of what I’d failed to appreciate and became proof that love outlasts our mistakes.
Watching my daughter wear it, I no longer see what I lost;
I see what was preserved.
Three women, one thread, and a promise that never really ended.
