My daughter wore my mother’s cardigan to the airport

Dear Delyara, My daughter left today to study abroad. At the airport, she was wearing my mother’s old cardigan. Mum died when my daughter was nine. I had given the cardigan to her years ago because it was soft and smelled faintly of the lavender sachets Mum kept in drawers. I had not seen it in a long time. My daughter said she wears it whenever she is nervous. That surprised me. She barely remembers Mum. She remembers the cardigan. At security, she hugged me and said, “I’ve got Granny, so you can stop worrying.” I laughed, then cried in a bathroom after she left because my mother once stood in an airport crying when I moved away too. I had been irritated by her fear and told her I was not a child. Today, my own child walked away wearing the sleeves of the woman I had not understood until I became her. When I got home, there was one lavender sachet missing from my drawer. My daughter had taken that too. Three generations of women, apparently, cope with separation by stealing something soft from the previous one.