Baxter’s paws pressed softly into the damp earth as he led Erin through the tangled grass, the yellow sweater swinging gently from his mouth. At the shed door, he stopped and glanced back, as if asking for her courage. Inside, the dim light revealed a nest of carefully folded clothes she knew by touch alone—her daughter’s shirts, a pair of leggings, a scarf she’d mended once at the kitchen table. Tucked in their center, a mother cat lay curled around a cluster of breathing, dreaming kittens.

The realization came in a quiet rush: her daughter had been here, making this sanctuary, wrapping fragile lives in her own warmth. The missing sweater was not a symbol of what was taken, but of what was given. As Erin and her husband opened their home to the small family, feeding, cleaning, listening to the soft sounds of new life, something imperceptible shifted. Grief did not leave, but it loosened its grip. In the gentle weight of a kitten on her chest and the steady presence of Baxter at her feet, Erin felt her daughter’s love moving forward without her, yet still with her—woven into acts of care that asked her, quietly, to keep choosing life.