And only now, when our time was running out, was I meeting Rosa: a woman who had wanted to be a teacher, who had loved to sing, who had known loneliness, and shy late-life tenderness, and private dreams she had set aside so quietly that her own daughter never knew they existed.

I started recording her, then — telling stories for Maya to watch when she grew up.

Recipes and lullabies and memories.

In one of them, she looked straight into the camera and said, “Maya, my sweet girl, when you grow up, remember that your mother works very hard, and sometimes thinks she has to be strong for the whole world.

If you ever see her too stressed, make her sit down, hold her hand, and remind her to breathe.” I cried behind the camera, and she cracked one eyebrow at me and told me not to ruin her video with my sniffling, and we both dissolved into laughing through our tears.

I want to say something about those months of finally knowing my mother as a person, because there is a grief inside the gift of it that took me a long time to name.