She thanked cashiers who barely noticed her, remembered birthdays everyone else forgot, and left cookies for our mail carrier each December because she believed little acts of kindness mattered.
When we moved into our modest rental house, I kept promising to fix the porch step, repaint the walls, and replace our scratched kitchen table before the baby came.
Emily simply smiled and reminded me that a home was not paint or furniture.
Then she purchased secondhand curtains, washed them twice, and somehow turned the nursery into a room filled with warmth despite how little money we had.
Seven days before everything fell apart, she gave birth to our son Noah.
He entered the world furious, tiny and red-faced, with fists hardly larger than bottle caps.
Emily cried when the nurse placed him against her chest, and although I tried hiding it from my family, I cried as well.