I folded one tiny pair of socks and felt huge tenderness for no reason

Dear Delyara, They were my daughter’s from years ago, somehow mixed into the wrong drawer, too small now by whole seasons of life. I don’t even know why they were still there. I held them in my hand and felt that ache mothers know — not sorrow exactly, but the sudden collision between time and fabric. The tiny body that once fit them. The child who used to need me in more obvious ways. The girl who now shuts her bedroom door and answers “fine” in that careful teenage voice that means, please don’t push me. I put the socks back in the drawer for a second before throwing them away. Then I couldn’t. That is probably its own answer.