The donated tapes covered general themes like parenting, dealing with grief, community care, and helping neighbors without demanding gratitude or public recognition.
I also began recording video messages for my own young children, even though nothing was wrong with my health and I expected many ordinary years ahead. I recorded stories about their birthdays, advice for their failures, answers to life questions, family recipes, and childhood memories they had heard so often they usually rolled their eyes.
By then, I had begun calling my children much more frequently because they had grown used to the emotional distance I had originally learned from Mom, and I refused to let them inherit it.
A year after Mom’s passing, Gabriel came over to the old house for dinner, carrying a fresh bouquet of flowers and pretending not to inspect my cooking too carefully.
I placed a warm apple pie on the center of the table, then inserted the final cassette tape we had saved specifically for that evening.
