"Mom," I asked as I sat on her kitchen counter, legs swinging as I chugged away at a sneaky, over my limit, cola from a cool glass bottle.

"Yes?" she asked, glancing up from the table where she was filling in some forms. She had her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose and her hair had been drawn back into a tight ponytail.

In that moment, as the thin dregs of daylight seeped through the double glass doors, hitting her face in a way that seemed to vanquish the lines that time had built, I was reminded of a memory from a long ago time. It was...