There were difficult moments too. When he was seven, he asked if loving me meant he was “forgetting” his mother. I knelt beside him and explained that love never replaces—it expands. His mother would always be part of him, and I was simply another safe place for his heart to rest. Something shifted after that conversation; he began expressing his feelings openly, without fear.
Now he’s eleven, taller, funnier, and pretending he’s too cool for hugs—until nighttime proves otherwise. But sometimes, in quiet moments, he still looks at me with that same sincerity from years ago and says, “I’m glad you’re here.” And every time, I’m reminded of our shared truth: love isn’t defined by biology but by the courage to let someone in. And he let me in long before he understood what that meant.
