This morning, I drove through a glittering wonderland to get my now eleven-year-old daughter to school on time.

When I was a girl, I woke up every birthday to my bedroom door dressed in ribbons and streamers. My mom never missed, not until I didn’t live in the house anymore—and even then, she kept up the tradition the summers I spent home from college. So far, I’m keeping the same track record, and on the eves of my daughters’ birthdays, when my alarm rings before bed, reminding me to tape up crepe paper and puff balls, I wonder if my mother used the tradition to steady herself the way I do now for my girls. Eleven years since she passed through my body, and every single one of them belong to her—but don’t they belong to me too, in a small way?

The other human who used to live inside of me had her first school play tonight, so with the tiny one sufficiently celebrated, we set off into the dark (an event at 7PM!) to cheer her on, my mother, me, my daughter, all in the row.