It felt important, though I couldn’t have explained why. I would walk beside him from the corner shop to his small house at the far end of the block, my hand wrapped confidently around his, as if I were the one making sure we arrived safely. Once inside, everything unfolded the same way each time. He would hold my hands, gaze at my face with careful attention, and smile softly before pouring two glasses of grape juice. He rarely spoke, yet the way he focused on me made the room feel calm and protected. To me, it was nothing more than our private habit, a gentle pause in an otherwise ordinary childhood.

As the years passed, my life began to move faster.

School demands, friendships, and later adult responsibilities slowly crowded out those visits. I stopped coming by every week. Each time I did see him, he seemed a little more distant, a little more silent, and I assumed it was simply the natural slowing that comes with age. When he died, grief arrived quietly, accompanied by a familiar regret—that I hadn’t shown up more, that I’d allowed time to slip away. Still, I held onto those afternoons as comforting memories from a simpler time. I never thought to question them. They felt complete as they were, small and warm, until years later when my mother shared a truth that reshaped everything I thought I understood.