When you live far from family, visits tend to stretch out. My brother and his girlfriend are here now, all the way from Sweden. And when I say they’re staying with us, I mean with us.
We don’t live in a sprawling house; we’re all under the same roof, sharing space and routines, along with the boundless energy of a toddler who never seems to run out of steam.
It’s a lot. The kind of lot that’s both beautiful and exhausting in equal measure.
But this visit feels different.
Last year, 2024, was one of those years that strips things down to their essence. It was a reminder of how fragile life is, how quickly the things we take for granted can slip through our fingers. It was a year that made the small, ordinary moments—the ones we often overlook—feel monumental.
Like hearing my brother’s laugh echo from the next room. Like sharing a quiet cup of coffee in the middle of morning chaos.
Yesterday, they went out shopping and came back with a small gift for me. It wasn’t extravagant. It didn’t need to be. It was thoughtful, unexpected, and quietly said, we see you.
Then his girlfriend handed me a card. “Read this when I’m not around,” she said.
So, I waited. And then I read it.
She wrote words I didn’t know I needed to hear. She wrote that she admires me—more than anyone she’s ever met. That she sees me as the kind of mother Luca will one day look up to and say, that’s my mom.
She called me unique. She said there’s nothing I can’t do. That I’ve given energy and motivation to so many people, even when I didn’t realize it.
And then she wrote: I want you to understand how much everyone around you loves and appreciates you.
I stopped. And I cried.
It’s not often I let myself see me the way others do. Most days, I’m just trying to hold it all together, to be a good mom, a good wife, a good person. Most days, I wonder if I’m doing any of it right.
And like so many of us, I’m harder on myself than anyone else ever could ever be.
But here was this card—a few simple words on a small piece of paper—offering a reflection of someone I hadn’t recognized in myself.
The card is on my desk now. I think it will stay there for a very long time.
Because we don’t always know the weight we carry until someone helps us set it down, even for a moment.