My daughter-in-law laughed as she gave me a $2 scratch-off for my 73rd birthday. Ten months later, my own son shoved a senior living brochure in front of me and said, “We already picked your room.” They thought I was too old to fight back. They had no idea what I had been hiding.

I thanked him for remembering.

Once, while we were planting a young peach tree, he asked, “Do you ever wish you had told me about the ticket right away?”

“Sometimes,” I admitted.

“Perhaps we’d have avoided some pain.

Or perhaps we’d have argued about how I should spend it before I understood what I wanted.”

He pressed soil around the roots.

“You must have been scared.”

“I was.