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.

These things weren’t grand, but they mattered to me.

Then I found a yellowed envelope at the bottom of one of the boxes I had brought from Colin’s house.

Inside was a letter Arthur had written a few months before he died.

I had forgotten it was there.

Maggie, he wrote, you have a habit of letting everyone stand under your umbrella while you get soaked.

I love that your heart is generous.

I worry that you forget you deserve shelter too.