My grandson Kevin stopped answering my calls a month before his college graduation. He even returned the oatmeal cookies I had baked for him without opening them. Heartbroken, I still attended his ceremony, carrying flowers and wearing the blue dress he had chosen for me years earlier. During his speech, Kevin suddenly mentioned me and admitted he had stopped speaking to me because of something he discovered in an old envelope. He had found proof that I once gave up my own education while raising him after his parents died. He mistakenly believed I had sacrificed my dreams because of him. In front of everyone, he apologized and returned the envelope. I finally explained that although I had missed my chance to study, I had never regretted raising him. Three weeks later, I enrolled in an adult-learning course—and Kevin finally understood that I could love him without giving up on myself.
