The house feels unbearably quiet now. It still smells like Mom’s lavender hand cream, and I half expect to hear her calling from the kitchen. It’s been two weeks since she passed from ovarian cancer, and the emptiness only grows.
Aunt Susan checks in every day. “Are you eating?” she asks. I tell her yes, though I haven’t touched the food piling up in the fridge. Nothing tastes right anymore.
Mom wasn’t just my parent—she chose me. I was five when she and Dad adopted me, already raising their son, Mark. From the start, she made me feel wanted. “This is your forever home,” she whispered on my first night.
Dad passed when I was thirteen, and from then on, Mom was my whole world. She cheered me on through school, heartbreaks, and college. After graduation, I took a job near her just to stay close. We had traditions, brunches, movie nights—until the diagnosis shattered everything.
She fought hard. For two years, I cared for her daily—cooking, cleaning, driving her to appointments. Mark, meanwhile, visited only twice.
Even so, Mom never held it against him. “Everyone grieves differently,” she said, still hoping he’d come around. But time ran out.
The morning of her funeral, I wore the navy dress she picked for me. I’d written a eulogy, a letter of love and thanks. But before the service, Mark pulled me aside and said something that gutted me: “No one wants to hear from the adopted one. The speech should come from real family.”
I said nothing, just nodded.
His speech was fine. Safe. Then a hospice nurse handed him a letter from Mom. He read it aloud.
“To my children, Mark and Emily. Yes, both of you. Blood makes you related. Love makes you mine.”
She had written to us both. She called me her answered prayer. And then she wrote: “Emily, I hope you kept the words I helped you write. Because they’re my last ones too.”
Mark looked at me with tearful eyes. “Please,” he said. “Come speak.”
So I did. I read the words Mom and I wrote together—about her love, her strength, her apple pie, and the lessons she taught about family. The room filled with tears and laughter. That’s what she would’ve wanted.
Later, Mark found me. “I was wrong about everything,” he said.
I nodded. “She loved you. She never stopped hoping.”
He looked down, ashamed. “I should’ve been there.”
“Then don’t waste any more time,” I said.
I realized I never needed that podium to prove I was her daughter. Mom already did that—clearly, powerfully, and forever.
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