The Echo of a Hug

I was just buying a baby shower gift at the department store when everything changed in an instant. A little boy I’d never seen before ran straight up to me, wrapped his tiny arms around my leg, and looked up with the biggest smile. “Mommy, I found you!” he said, his voice filled with pure joy. My heart stopped. This wasn’t my child. My son, Jacob (Jake) Carter, died two years ago in a car accident, and I’d spent every day since then avoiding moments exactly like this one. Before I could even process what was happening, a woman came running over, panic written all over her face. “Ethan Miller, get away from her right now! That’s not your mother!” she shouted, trying to pull him away from me. But Ethan Miller held on tighter and looked up at her with confusion that broke my heart. “But Aunt Olivia Miller, you told me she died! You said Mommy died in the hospital, but she’s right here!” The entire store seemed to freeze. Other shoppers stopped mid-conversation and stared at us. Some pulled out their phones. I could feel dozens of eyes on us as this private moment of grief and confusion became a public spectacle. This little boy thought I was his dead mother, and I was a woman who had lost her own child, standing in the middle of a department store, not knowing whether to run away or fall apart right there on the spot.

My name is Emily Carter, and I’m 32 years old. I work in marketing, live alone in a small apartment downtown, and for the past two years, I’ve structured my entire life around avoiding exactly this kind of situation. I shop during school hours. I cross the street when I see children Jacob (Jake) Carter’s age, and I’ve turned down every invitation to birthday parties, family gatherings, or anywhere else I might encounter kids. My therapist calls it avoidance, but I call it survival. The woman trying to pull Ethan Miller away from me was clearly his aunt, Olivia Miller, and she looked like she was about to have a panic attack. Ethan Miller was around six years old, the same age Jacob (Jake) Carter was when he died, with dark hair and brown eyes that reminded me nothing of my blond, blue-eyed son. But everything about the way he looked at me, with such hope and desperation, felt familiar. I knew that look because I’d worn it myself for months after the accident, searching faces in crowds, hoping against hope that somehow Jacob (Jake) Carter would come running back to me.

Standing there in that department store, with Ethan Miller’s arm still wrapped around my leg and Olivia Miller’s frantic apologies filling the air, I realized that for the first time in two years, a child was hugging me. And despite the pain, despite the confusion, despite everything that was wrong about this moment, part of me didn’t want to let go either. This wasn’t my son, but for just a few seconds, I remembered what it felt like to be someone’s whole world, to be the person a child runs to when they’re scared or lost or happy. But the reality crashed back quickly: this little boy was looking for his dead mother, and I was a stranger he’d mistaken for her. The crowd around us was growing, phones were recording, and I could see the judgmental stares from people who had no idea what any of us were going through. Olivia Miller kept apologizing and trying to explain that Ethan Miller had been having episodes like this ever since his mother died, but her words were getting lost in the chaos of the moment. What happened next would change all three of our lives forever, but in that first moment, all I could think about was how Jacob (Jake) Carter used to run to me exactly like this when I picked him up from preschool. How he’d wrap his arms around my legs and tell me about his day in that excited, breathless way that only six-year-olds can manage. How I’d give anything to have that moment back, and how cruel it felt that life was giving me this echo of it instead.

Chapter 1: The Careful, Controlled Life

Let me back up and tell you how I ended up in that department store in the first place, because the truth is, I had no business being there at all. It was a Tuesday afternoon in March, and I was supposed to be at work, finishing a presentation for a client meeting. Instead, I was standing in the children’s section at Macy’s, holding a tiny yellow onesie that said “Little Sunshine,” and trying not to have a complete breakdown. My sister, Hannah Carter, was having her baby shower that weekend, and I’d been putting off buying a gift for weeks. Every time I thought about walking into a store and looking at baby clothes, my chest would tighten, and I’d find some excuse to do it later.

But Hannah Carter had called me that morning, and I could hear the hurt in her voice when she asked if I was really going to come to the shower, or if I was going to bail like I had on her birthday party and her engagement celebration. “Sarah, I know this is hard for you,” she’d said, her voice gentle but firm. “But I need my sister there. This baby is going to be your nephew, and I want him to know his aunt.” The way she said it made me realize I’d been disappearing from my own family’s life, not just avoiding strangers’ children. So I promised her I’d be there, and I promised myself I’d buy something beautiful for the baby.

The problem was that I’d specifically chosen to shop at 2:00 p.m. on a Tuesday because I thought the store would be empty of families. In my carefully constructed world, I’d figured out all the “safe” times and places: grocery shopping at 10:00 a.m. when kids were in school, movies at the earliest possible showing on weeknights. Even my route to work avoided the elementary school six blocks from my apartment. I’d become an expert at navigating life without encountering the reminders of what I’d lost. But standing there in that store, surrounded by tiny clothes and stuffed animals and all the things I’d once bought for Jacob (Jake) Carter, I realized how exhausting it had become to live like this. Every decision filtered through the question of whether I might see a child who looked like him, or sounded like him, or even just existed in the same space where he should have been.

Jacob (Jake) Carter had been gone for exactly two years and three months, not that I was counting. Except I was counting. Every single day. The accident happened on a Wednesday morning in December. I was running late for work and rushing to get him to preschool. The last thing he said to me was, “Mommy, you forgot to tell me you love me.” I remember laughing and calling back, “I love you, Jacob (Jake) Carter Bear!” as I watched him run into the building with his little backpack bouncing. Three hours later, a drunk driver ran a red light and hit the school bus that was taking Jacob (Jake) Carter’s class on a field trip to the fire station. Five children were injured. Only Jacob (Jake) Carter didn’t make it home.

The months after that were a blur of casseroles from neighbors, therapy appointments I didn’t want to attend, and well-meaning friends who kept telling me that time would heal everything. What they didn’t understand was that I didn’t want to heal if healing meant moving on from Jacob (Jake) Carter. So instead, I built this careful, controlled life where I could function without constantly being reminded of what was missing. I’d been seeing Dr. Harper Collins for about 18 months, and she kept pushing me to engage with the world again. “Avoidance isn’t protecting you from pain, Sarah,” she’d say during our sessions. “It’s just postponing it and making it harder to process.” But what she didn’t understand was that the alternative felt impossible. How do you go to Target and walk past the toy section without remembering the last time you bought Hot Wheels cars? How do you hear a child laugh at the park without your heart breaking all over again?

Standing in Macy’s that day, I’d been making progress, or at least that’s what I told myself. I’d managed to pick out three different onesies, a soft blue blanket, and a set of board books. I was actually feeling proud of myself for getting through the shopping trip without crying, which had become my new definition of a successful day. I was wearing a blue sweater, without even realizing it was Jacob (Jake) Carter’s favorite color. He used to say blue was the color of the sky where angels lived, which was something he’d learned from his Sunday school teacher. After he died, I’d put away everything blue in my closet because it hurt too much to see it. But that morning, I’d grabbed the sweater without thinking, and now I wondered if some part of me had been preparing for this moment all along. The store was busy but not crowded, filled with the usual Tuesday afternoon shoppers: a few moms with strollers, some teenagers browsing jewelry, and elderly couples taking their time through the Home Goods section. It felt safe and manageable, exactly the kind of environment I’d learned to navigate. I had no idea that in five minutes, everything I thought I knew about protecting myself from pain was about to be completely turned upside down.

Chapter 2: “Mommy, I Found You!”

I was examining a set of baby books when I felt it: small arms wrapping around my leg with a kind of desperate strength that only comes from a child who’s been searching for something precious. At first, I thought maybe I’d accidentally gotten in someone’s way, but then I heard the voice that made my world stop spinning. “Mommy, I found you! I was looking everywhere for you!” The voice was high and breathless with excitement, filled with the kind of pure joy that I remembered from Jacob (Jake) Carter’s voice when he’d spot me picking him up from school. My body went completely rigid, every muscle tensed as my brain tried to process what was happening.

I looked down and saw a little boy with dark hair that was slightly messy, like he’d been running. His brown eyes were bright with happiness and relief, and he was looking up at me like I was the answer to every prayer he’d ever made. He wasn’t Jacob (Jake) Carter. This boy was maybe a little taller, his hair was darker, and his eyes were brown instead of blue. But he was the same age Jacob (Jake) Carter would have been now if he’d lived: six years old, with that particular way of holding on to an adult like they were the most important person in the universe. The similarity in age hit me like a physical blow, but what really broke my heart was the expression on his face. He looked at me with such complete trust and love that I felt my carefully constructed walls start to crumble.

“Sweetheart,” I managed to whisper, my voice catching in my throat, “I think you might have me confused with someone else.” But he shook his head vigorously, his grip on my leg tightening. “No, you’re my mommy! I knew I’d find you! Aunt Olivia Miller said you couldn’t come back, but you’re here!” His voice carried that particular mix of triumph and relief that children get when they’ve proven the adults wrong about something important.

That’s when I heard the running footsteps—fast, panicked footsteps that belonged to someone in crisis. I looked up to see a young woman rushing toward us, her face flushed and her eyes wide with what looked like terror. She was probably in her late twenties, with the same dark hair as the boy, and she was clearly his family based on the way she immediately reached for him. “Ethan Miller! Ethan Miller, no!” she called out, her voice sharp with panic. “Get away from her right now! That’s not your mother!” The harshness in her tone made Ethan Miller flinch, but he didn’t let go of me. Instead, he pressed closer, like he was trying to protect himself from her words. “But she looks like Mommy,” he said, his voice getting smaller and more confused. “She smells like Mommy too.”

The woman, who I assumed was his aunt Olivia Miller based on what he’d called her, reached us and immediately started trying to pry Ethan Miller’s arms away from my leg. “I’m so sorry,” she said to me, her voice shaking with embarrassment and fear. “He’s been doing this ever since Rebecca Miller died. He’s been running up to strangers. I turned my back for one second to look at shoes and he disappeared!” But Ethan Miller wasn’t having it. He looked up at Olivia Miller with an expression that was part confusion and part accusation, and what he said next made the entire department store fall silent. “But Aunt Olivia Miller, you told me she died! You said Mommy died in the hospital and couldn’t come home anymore! But she’s right here! She’s right here and she’s not dead!”

The words hung in the air like a physical thing. I could feel every person within hearing distance stop what they were doing and turn to look at us. Conversations died mid-sentence, shopping bags stopped rustling, even the background music from the store’s speakers seemed to fade as everyone absorbed what this little boy had just said. Olivia Miller’s face went completely white. She looked like she might faint or throw up or both. “Ethan Miller, please,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “This isn’t Mommy. Mommy is gone, remember? We talked about this.” “No!” Ethan Miller’s voice rose to a near shout, filled with the kind of desperate defiance that comes from a child who’s had their reality questioned too many times. “You’re lying! You told me she was dead, but she’s not! She’s right here! Tell her! Mommy, tell Aunt Olivia Miller you’re not dead!”

I felt tears starting to burn behind my eyes. This little boy was living in the same impossible space I’d been occupying for two years—the place where logic and hope collide and create nothing but pain. He wanted his mother back so desperately that he was willing to believe a complete stranger could be her. And I understood that feeling so completely it made my chest ache. People were definitely staring now. I could see phones being pulled out, whispered conversations starting, and the kind of crowd that gathers when something dramatic happens in a public place. But all I could focus on was Ethan Miller’s face, the way he was looking between Olivia Miller and me, like we held the power to either save his world or destroy it completely. That’s when I realized I had a choice to make that would change everything.

Chapter 3: A Choice in the Chaos

In that moment, with Ethan Miller’s arm still wrapped around my leg and Olivia Miller looking like she was about to collapse from embarrassment and panic, I had two choices. I could do what I’d been doing for two years and walk away. I could gently remove Ethan Miller’s arms, mumble an apology to Olivia Miller, and disappear into the crowd of shoppers who were now watching us like we were performing some kind of tragic street theater. That would have been the safe choice, the choice that protected my carefully constructed bubble of emotional safety. It would have been the easier path, the one that kept my grief neatly contained, undisturbed by the messy, unpredictable emotions of others.

Instead, I did something that surprised even me. I knelt down, getting to Ethan Miller’s eye level. It meant looking directly into those serious brown eyes that were filled with so much hope and confusion. It meant seeing the tear tracks on his cheeks that I hadn’t noticed before, and the way his little hands were trembling as he held on to my sweater. It meant acknowledging that this wasn’t just about my pain anymore. “Ethan Miller,” I said softly, using his name for the first time, my voice a gentle anchor in the swirling chaos. “Can you tell me about your mommy? What was she like?”

Olivia Miller made a small sound of protest behind me. “Ma’am, you don’t have to do this. I can handle him. We’ll just go.” But I held up my hand, a silent signal, without taking my eyes off Ethan Miller. Something about this little boy’s desperation felt familiar in a way that went beyond just recognizing grief. He reminded me of myself in those first months after Jacob (Jake) Carter died, when I’d see a blonde child at the grocery store and follow them down three aisles before reality crashed back in. This wasn’t just mistaken identity; it was a shared understanding of a raw, unyielding pain.

“She had hair like yours,” Ethan Miller said, reaching up to touch a strand of my dark hair, his small fingers surprisingly soft. “And she always smelled like flowers. She used to read me stories about dragons, and she made the best chocolate chip pancakes in the whole world. She called me her ‘little knight’ because I was brave.” Each word he spoke made my heart break a little more, a fresh crack in the wall I’d built. But also, something else happened that I hadn’t expected: I started to remember what it felt like to talk about Jacob (Jake) Carter without immediately shutting down, without the overwhelming tide of anguish. Ethan Miller’s words, his innocent memories, were a strange, painful balm.

“She sounds like she was an amazing mom,” I told him, my voice steady now, infused with a newfound empathy. “And you know what? I bet she still thinks you’re the bravest little knight she knows.”

“But where did she go?” Ethan Miller asked, his voice getting smaller, the hope in his eyes dimming slightly. “Aunt Olivia Miller says she’s in heaven, but I looked up at the sky and I can’t see her. And sometimes at night, I hear Aunt Olivia Miller crying on the phone saying she can’t do this anymore. I thought if I found Mommy, then Aunt Olivia Miller wouldn’t be sad.”

That’s when Olivia Miller completely broke down. She sank into a nearby chair, her face in her hands, her whole body shaking with suppressed sobs. She’d clearly been holding back for months, trying to project an image of strength she didn’t possess. “I can’t,” she whispered, her voice choked with tears. “I don’t know how to do this. Rebecca Miller was supposed to be here. She was the one who knew how to answer these questions. I’m just his aunt. I don’t know how to be his mother.” Looking at Olivia Miller fall apart while Ethan Miller stood there, trying to process emotions that were too big for his six-year-old heart, I realized something important. I’d been so focused on protecting myself from pain that I’d forgotten how isolating grief could be. Here was a woman who was drowning in the same kind of loss I was, and a little boy who was searching for his mother in the faces of strangers because the truth was too hard to accept, too painful to articulate.

“Olivia Miller,” I said, still kneeling next to Ethan Miller but looking at her, a bridge of understanding forming between us. “How long has it been since Ethan Miller’s mom died?”

“Six months,” she choked out, lifting her tear-stained face. “My sister, Rebecca Miller, had cancer. She fought for two years, and I kept telling Ethan Miller she was going to get better because I couldn’t bear to see him give up hope. But when she died, he couldn’t understand why I’d been lying to him. And I didn’t know how to explain death to a six-year-old when I could barely accept it myself.”

I felt something shift inside my chest, like a door I’d kept locked for two years was finally starting to open, creaking on rusty hinges. The carefully built walls of my isolation began to crumble, not in collapse, but in a gradual opening. “Ethan Miller,” I said, taking his small, trembling hands in mine, surprised by the firmness of my own resolve. “I want to tell you something. I had a little boy too. His name was Jacob (Jake) Carter, and he died in an accident two years ago. I miss him every single day, just like you miss your mommy.”

Ethan Miller’s eyes widened, a flicker of recognition, a glimmer of shared experience. “You had a little boy? Where is he now?”

“He’s in the same place your mommy is,” I said, surprised by how steady my voice sounded, how natural the words felt. “And I’ve been just as scared and sad as you are. But I learned something important: missing someone doesn’t mean they’re really gone. It means we love them so much that we carry them with us everywhere we go.”

“Can you teach me how to do that?” Ethan Miller asked, his voice earnest, fragile. “Because I don’t want to forget her, but it hurts so much to remember.”

That’s when I made the decision that would change all of our lives. It wasn’t a logical choice, or a practical one. It was an instinct, a leap of faith into the messy, unpredictable waters of shared grief. “What if we helped each other remember?” I suggested, a quiet revolutionary thought. “And what if we helped Aunt Olivia Miller too?”

What happened next still gives me chills when I think about it. Ethan Miller looked at me with those serious brown eyes and asked, his voice unwavering, “Will you come home with us so you can teach me how to remember without it hurting so much?” Olivia Miller’s head snapped up from her hands, her eyes wide with disbelief and a flicker of desperate hope. “Ethan Miller, we can’t ask this lady to come to our house! She’s a stranger!” But something had shifted in the air between the three of us. I could feel it, and I think they could too. “Actually,” I said, looking at Olivia Miller, a small, tentative smile forming on my lips, “maybe we could just talk for a few more minutes. There’s a coffee shop in the mall. I think we all need to sit down.”

Chapter 4: Building a New Kind of Family

Twenty minutes later, we were sitting in a corner booth at the food court, the fluorescent lights a stark contrast to the profound intimacy unfolding between us. Ethan Miller was nestled between Olivia Miller and me, sharing a chocolate chip cookie that was probably his dinner, but none of us cared. And that’s when the real truth started coming out.

“I’ve been lying to him,” Olivia Miller said, her voice barely above a whisper, her eyes fixed on the crumbling cookie. “Not just about Rebecca Miller being dead, but about everything. I’ve been pretending I can handle this, pretending I know what I’m doing, pretending I’m not completely falling apart.” She looked at Ethan Miller, who was carefully breaking his cookie into small pieces, oblivious to the raw confession. “Ethan Miller, remember when you heard me on the phone last week, when I was talking to Grandma Evelyn?” Ethan Miller nodded, not looking up from his cookie. “I wasn’t just sad about Mommy being gone. I was scared. Because I don’t know how to take care of you the way she did. I don’t know how to make pancakes without burning them, or how to do the voice for the dragon in your bedtime stories, or how to answer your questions about where Mommy went.”

“But you’re doing it,” Ethan Miller said quietly, finally looking up at her, his brown eyes full of an unshakeable trust. “You’re taking care of me.”

“I’m trying,” Olivia Miller said, tears streaming down her face again, but this time, they felt less like panic and more like a desperate honesty. “But I’m so scared I’m going to mess everything up. Your mommy was the one who was good with kids. I’m just a 28-year-old who works at a bank and has never even had a houseplant live longer than six months.”

That’s when Ethan Miller looked up at her with an expression that was far too mature for his age. “Aunt Olivia Miller, were you going to give me away? Is that why you were crying on the phone?” The question hung in the air like a bomb waiting to explode, silencing the background din of the food court. Olivia Miller’s face went completely white, and I could see her trying to figure out how to answer without devastating this little boy even more. “Ethan Miller,” she said finally, her voice choked. “I would never give you away. Ever. But I did call Grandma Evelyn to ask if maybe you could come live with her for a while, just until I figured out how to be better at taking care of you. But I don’t want to live with Grandma Evelyn,” Ethan Miller said, his voice getting higher, cracking with fear. “She lives far away, and she doesn’t know about my trucks, or my favorite pajamas, or that I can’t sleep without the nightlight that looks like a star.” “I know,” Olivia Miller whispered, reaching across the table to smooth his messy hair. “That’s why I couldn’t do it. That’s why I told her no. But Ethan Miller, I need you to know that sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing.”

That’s when I realized why Ethan Miller had been running up to strangers in stores. He wasn’t just looking for his mother; he was looking for someone who could give him the stability and love he was afraid he was going to lose again. “Ethan Miller,” I said, gently, “can I tell you something? When my little boy, Jacob (Jake) Carter, died, I thought I had to be perfect at handling it. I thought I had to have all the right answers and never cry and never admit that I was scared. But you know what I learned? The people who love us don’t need us to be perfect. They just need us to be honest.” I looked at Olivia Miller, meeting her tearful gaze. “And Olivia Miller, you don’t have to be Ethan Miller’s mother. You just have to be his Aunt Olivia Miller, who loves him and is trying her best.” “But what if my best isn’t good enough?” Olivia Miller asked, her voice barely audible.

“Then we figure it out together,” I said, surprising myself with the words, with the conviction behind them. “What if you didn’t have to do this alone?”

Ethan Miller’s face lit up, a spark of pure, childlike hope returning. “You mean, like a team? Like the Avengers?” I laughed, and it was the first time I’d laughed in months without feeling guilty about it, a genuine, unrestrained burst of mirth. “Exactly like the Avengers! But instead of saving the world, we help each other.” “Can you teach me how to remember Mommy without getting so sad that I can’t breathe?” Ethan Miller asked, his small voice full of a heartbreaking earnestness. “And can you teach me how to make pancakes that don’t look like burned hockey pucks?” Olivia Miller added, a watery chuckle escaping her lips. “And can you both teach me how to stop being so scared of living again?” I asked, my own voice a little shaky now, raw with my own confession. Ethan Miller reached across the table and took both of our hands, his tiny grip surprisingly strong. “Deal. But we have to promise to tell each other the truth, even when it’s scary.” “Deal,” Olivia Miller and I said at the same time, our voices merging into a single, hopeful chord. And just like that, our lives changed forever.

Chapter 5: The Unconventional Family

That was six months ago, and I’m sitting here today telling you this story because I want you to understand something important about grief, about family, and about the unexpected ways life can surprise you when you finally stop running from it. Ethan Miller, Olivia Miller, and I didn’t just exchange phone numbers that day and go back to our separate lives. We became something I never expected to find again after losing Jacob (Jake) Carter. We became a family. Just not the kind that looks like anything you’d see in a greeting card.

The first month was messy and complicated and beautiful all at once. Ethan Miller started coming to my apartment twice a week after school while Olivia Miller worked late at the bank. I taught him how to make Jacob (Jake) Carter’s favorite blue pancakes—the ones with way too much food coloring that turn your tongue bright blue for hours. He taught me that it’s okay to cry when you’re telling stories about people you love, and that sometimes the best way to honor someone’s memory is to laugh at the funny things they used to do. Olivia Miller and I started meeting for coffee every Sunday morning, just the two of us, to talk about the hard stuff: How do you discipline a grieving child? How do you answer questions about death when you’re barely handling your own grief? How do you build a life around loss without letting the loss become your whole life? We figured it out together, one conversation at a time, one shared tear, one tentative laugh.

But the biggest change happened about three months in, when Ethan Miller asked me something that changed everything. We were at the park, watching him play on the swings that I’d avoided for two years because they reminded me too much of Jacob (Jake) Carter. “Miss Sarah,” he said, his voice carrying over the squeak of the chains, “do you think Jacob (Jake) Carter and my mommy know each other in heaven?” I’d been dreading a question like this, because I didn’t know how to talk about heaven or the afterlife or any of the big spiritual questions that come with losing someone you love. But sitting there, watching Ethan Miller swing higher and higher, his face alight with simple joy, I realized I didn’t need to have all the answers. I just needed to be honest. “I don’t know,” I told him, a soft smile on my face. “But I like to think they do. I like to think Jacob (Jake) Carter is teaching your mommy how to play with trucks, and she’s teaching him how to make really good pancakes. And maybe they’re both watching us be a family.” “Our family,” Ethan Miller said, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

That’s when it hit me. We weren’t just helping each other cope with grief; we were actually building something new and beautiful from the pieces of our broken hearts. Ethan Miller had two adults who loved him unconditionally, who were figuring out how to navigate life’s toughest challenges together. Olivia Miller had support and friendship, and someone who truly understood the immense weight of suddenly becoming responsible for a child. And I had something I thought I’d lost forever: the chance to be part of a little boy’s life again, to matter to someone who needed me, to be a safe harbor in a storm.

Last month, Ethan Miller started calling me Aunt Sarah, not because anyone told him to, but because that’s what felt right to him. Olivia Miller and I are officially co-guardians now, which means when Ethan Miller grows up, he’ll have two women who fought for him, who chose him, who built their lives around making sure he felt loved and secure. We’re an unconventional family, perhaps, but our bond is forged in shared loss and rebuilt with conscious, intentional love.

But here’s the thing I want you to understand if you’re reading this and you’re dealing with your own loss, your own grief, your own fear of moving forward: healing doesn’t mean forgetting. Healing doesn’t mean replacing what you lost. Healing means learning to carry love forward instead of just carrying pain. I still miss Jacob (Jake) Carter every single day. I still have moments where I see a blonde little boy at the grocery store and my heart stops for just a second. But now, I also have Ethan Miller’s artwork on my refrigerator, and Olivia Miller’s terrible cooking experiments to laugh about, and Sunday morning pancakes that turn everyone’s teeth blue.

The most important thing I learned is that family isn’t just about blood or marriage or the traditional structures we grow up expecting. Sometimes, family is a grieving aunt who doesn’t know how to make pancakes, and a little boy who’s brave enough to hug strangers when he’s looking for love, and a broken woman who thought she’d never be anyone’s safe harbor again. We’re not perfect. We still have hard days. Ethan Miller still asks difficult questions about his mother, and Olivia Miller still calls me crying when she doesn’t know how to handle something. And I still sometimes feel guilty for being happy when Jacob (Jake) Carter isn’t here to be happy with me. But we’ve learned to tell each other the truth, even when it’s scary. We’ve learned that love multiplies instead of divides when you share it, and we’ve learned that sometimes the most healing thing you can do is help someone else heal. Remember, you’re not alone in your grief, and you’re stronger than you think.