For Every Friend Missing Their Mom
Last weekend, I took my 74-year-old Ammi: mom, out on a date. Just a little café tucked away in a quiet corner in Evanston, a place with soft music, big windows, and warm coffee.
We sat by the window, watching people pass by. We talked about everything and nothing. I don’t know what made me bring it up: maybe the way the light hit her face, maybe the safety of being near her: but I told her how deeply I love her and asked her for a piece of advice she hopes I’ll never forget.
“You know beta: son, I’ve lived long enough to know that carrying hurt is like walking with stones in your pockets. Heavy. Unseen.
And every step gets harder. Forgiveness isn’t saying what they did was okay: it’s saying you deserve peace.”
I asked her how she did it. How she could be so gentle with a world that hadn’t always been kind to her.
She smiled, not with her lips but with her whole being.
“Because life is too short, Amin. Too short to replay pain. Too short to give away our days to bitterness. We don’t forgive because they deserve it. We forgive because we do.”
I think that was the hardest lesson she ever taught me: Forgiveness. And the most beautiful.
She may never know how deeply her words settled into my heart that day.
And what a gift it is, to learn how to let go from the hands that once held you.