When my friends began having children, I noticed a pattern. Their mothers, it seemed, were always there: a phone call away for advice, on a plane before the due date, instinctively knowing how and when to help as soon as the baby arrived. They folded tiny onesies and took shifts rocking newborns to sleep, somehow finding that perfect bounce new parents spend weeks trying to learn while my friends, their daughters, took showers. The handoff between generations looked seamless, almost rehearsed.

The defining role of my early adulthood was being my mother’s primary caregiver, until I lost her to cancer when I was 26. I filled pillboxes, scheduled appointments, and rushed home from my job in the city to make it to her blood transfusions. When she died, I grieved the obvious things—her empty c

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