The first stitch my mother ever taught me was simple. “Needles remember gentle hands,” she used to say whenever I tugged the thread too hard. “If you force them, they’ll fight back.” I never understood what she meant until years later, standing alone in my bedroom with tears running down my face while holding the last thing she had ever made for me.

I’d seen in weeks.

“Working.”

“You should be sleeping.”

“I’ve slept enough.”

She held up a pattern.

“For what?”

“For your prom.”

I stared at her.

“Mom… that’s almost a year away.”

“So?”

“You don’t have to make me anything.”

“I know.”

“Then why?”

“Because I want to.”

She patted the empty chair beside her.

“Come here.”

I sat carefully beside the hospital bed we had continue reading …