The first time I put it on my own table I stood there for a long time before I could sit down. Because it smelled like her house. Like her hands. Like every Easter I ever spent as a child not understanding what any of it meant, just knowing it was safe and warm and certain.

I understand now what I couldn't then. Traditions are not about the past. They're about continuity. About saying — this mattered to someone before me, and it matters to me now, and perhaps it will matter to someone after me. That thread is not nothing. That thread is everything 🌿

The older I get the more I feel the weight of being a link in that chain. The responsibility of it. The privilege of it.

I iron that tablecloth every year now. Not because I have to. Because it's the most honest conversation I can have with everyone who came before me 🕯️

I don't know who will have it after me. But I hope they feel what I feel when they unfold it.