My relationship with the woman I knew as my grandmother was a strange mix of irritation and quiet fondness. Every year on my birthday, she repeated the same odd ritual: she handed me a single, old postcard. As a teenager, it felt cheap, almost insulting. I’d scowl, roll my eyes, and wonder why she couldn’t just give me a “normal” gift. I had no idea what those cards really were. She passed away when I was seventeen. Life swept me forward—college, marriage, divorce. Two decades slipped by. At thirty-seven, I returned to my childhood home and, while sorting through dusty…
