Anna began to see her life as a series of threads—some cut short, some tangled, but others still weaving themselves into unexpected patterns. Her mother’s thread, though no longer visible, was still stitched into everything.

One evening, as she and Jinny sat in the hospital lobby, Anna confessed, “I used to think grief was just about holding on. But maybe… maybe it’s also about letting new people in.”

Jinny smiled, her eyes soft with knowing. “Your mother would be glad you’re learning that.”

It wasn’t about replacing what she’d lost. It was about carrying it forward. The cookies she baked weren’t just cookies—they were extensions of her mom’s kindness. The notes she left weren’t just words—they were echoes of love passed on.

Months later, Anna’s coworkers surprised her with a small party in the break room. There was laughter, awkwardly sung birthday wishes, and a lopsided cake with too many candles. As she blew them out, Anna realized this was the first time in years she didn’t feel like she was standing alone in the fog.

And when she walked home that night, she tucked her mother’s photo into her coat pocket—not as a relic of the past, but as proof that love, once planted, keeps finding ways to bloom.