I used to think our family was ordinary in the best possible way—comfortable, affectionate, a little sentimental around the edges. The kind of household where love wasn’t loud, but constant. After twelve years of marriage, Hayden still slipped handwritten notes into my coffee mug before work, short lines in his uneven handwriting reminding me that care is something you practice, not something that fades. And our daughter, Mya, carried a kind of curiosity that could stop a room. She asked questions that weren’t meant to be clever, just honest, the kind that made adults pause and remember what wonder felt…
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