Colm helped me pick the plants.

He knows what it’s for; he’ll knock on the door sometimes and ask if she wants company, and sometimes she says yes and he sits with her, and sometimes she says give me ten minutes, buddy, and he does, and neither of those is a rejection, because he understands now that his mother’s sadness is not something he caused or something he has to fix.

It is just weather that passes through her sometimes, and the room is where she lets it pass.

I built her a place to not be okay in.

It turns out that is one of the most loving things I have ever done, and it took me nearly losing everything to understand that a person does not need you to keep them from ever falling apart.

They need you to make it safe to fall apart, and to still be there, unafraid, when they do.