When I Was Four, My Mother Left Me Alone in a Church—Twenty Years Later She Returned Crying, “We Need You”

Where I was abandoned.

It became:

Where I work.

Where Florence played.

Where hungry families picked up groceries.

Where children performed terrible Christmas pageants.

Where I learned belonging does not require forgetting what happened before.

I think healing often means allowing new memories to coexist with old ones instead of forcing the old ones out.