I Smelled the School Jumper Before Washing It

Dear Delyara, I stood there with that damp jumper in my hands and felt the weird ache of motherhood again — how you hold the evidence of a child’s life without holding the life itself. The jumper tells you there was a day. It does not tell you how the heart inside it managed that day. I put it in the machine and felt that old helpless tenderness rise in me. I can wash the jumper. I cannot wash the hurts I don’t know about yet. That helplessness is part of love too. No one tells you how much.