Emma graduated. She teaches at a dance studio across town.
I know because she still sends me a Christmas card.
The first year, I wasn’t sure one would come. When it did, I cried right there in the kitchen. Mark asked who it was from, and I just held it up.
Emma, standing in a bright studio, surrounded by little girls in purple leotards.
On the back, she had written: Still standing. Still dancing.
I keep that card. Not because I expect her to come back to our family. She doesn’t owe us that.
I keep it because for years I thought of Emma as almost a daughter. And then, for two months, without meaning to, I treated her like the person whose job it was to hold my son together.
Intentions don’t erase pressure. Sometimes, when someone becomes “the strong one,” everyone around them gets very comfortable letting them carry more and more.
