I folded my daughter’s leggings and found a tiny note in the pocket

Dear Delyara, Just a scrap of paper with one line from a friend and a badly drawn heart. It shouldn’t have made me emotional. It did. Because children carry whole private worlds now. School worlds, friendship worlds, little secret heartbreak worlds, hopeful worlds, embarrassed worlds, all folded up into pockets and school bags and faces that tell you less than they used to. Motherhood at this age is often standing at the edge of those worlds, seeing only fragments, loving fiercely anyway. I put the note back. I don’t need to know everything. That is part of the grief and grace of it now.