But attention is not a transaction.

Attention is a form of surrender.

To truly attend to another person is to let them interrupt you, to let what you notice about them change your plans, to make yourself available to a need you cannot control or predict or schedule.

That is the thing I would not do.

I had a launch.

I had a career.

I had a self-image of myself as a woman who was crushing it, holding it all together, and a mother who needed real care did not fit into that image — but a mother I could generously provide for did.

So I provided.