After A Month Of Showering My Mother With Love ... (2025)

She noticed. She didn’t say anything at first. But later, as I was leaving, she touched my elbow. Just two fingers, barely a grip. “You didn’t have to do that door.”

She stopped knitting. Thought for a long time. “Surrendering, I guess. Which I’ve never been good at.” After a month of showering my mother with love ...

My mother hadn’t learned to refuse love because she didn’t want it. She had learned that asking for love was selfish. That needing help was a failure. That her job was to give, and everyone else’s job was to take. And if she ever stopped giving? She would become her own mother—exhausted, silent, and secretly resentful. After a month of showering my mother with love, I expected a Hallmark moment. What I got was something better and harder: a quiet Tuesday evening. She was knitting—a terrible, lopsided scarf she would never wear. I was reading. She noticed

She noticed. She didn’t say anything at first. But later, as I was leaving, she touched my elbow. Just two fingers, barely a grip. “You didn’t have to do that door.”

She stopped knitting. Thought for a long time. “Surrendering, I guess. Which I’ve never been good at.”

My mother hadn’t learned to refuse love because she didn’t want it. She had learned that asking for love was selfish. That needing help was a failure. That her job was to give, and everyone else’s job was to take. And if she ever stopped giving? She would become her own mother—exhausted, silent, and secretly resentful. After a month of showering my mother with love, I expected a Hallmark moment. What I got was something better and harder: a quiet Tuesday evening. She was knitting—a terrible, lopsided scarf she would never wear. I was reading.