Aunt Madeline had taken me in and raised me for three whole years after my parents died in an accident.

I was twenty-two at the time, technically an adult, but still young enough to feel like the ground had dropped out from beneath my feet.

She never tried to replace my mother.

Instead, she simply established small, comforting daily routines for us.

We had fresh coffee at seven in the morning, did laundry together on Saturdays, and went grocery shopping every Sunday afternoon.

She firmly believed that structured routines could hold a broken person together until grief stopped tearing everything apart.