Dedication

For Frances M. Cascinai

The woman who adopted me. The woman who saw me.

You were only thirty-seven when you left this world, but your presence has lived in me every single day since. We shared just nine years together, and yet you remain one of the deepest truths I’ve ever known. Ours wasn’t a conventional bond.

It was soul-deep, intuitive, and carved from the kind of love that doesn’t ask to be understood—it just is.

You saw me in ways no one else could. You accepted my sensitivities, my strange ways of feeling the world as if it lived inside my skin.

When others warned that I would struggle because I was “too much,” you smiled and stayed close.

On one of our last days together, in the quiet of the barn, you told me something I’ll never forget:

“We’ll always be connected through an invisible golden thread.”

You were right.

Two months later, we spoke for the last time—at least in the way this world allows.

But that thread?

It’s never frayed. It’s what pulls me toward truth. It’s what anchors my work.

It’s the soft voice behind every word I write, reminding me why stories matter—why bearing witness to the unseen is sacred work.

You saved my life more than once—at sixteen, at twenty-six, at thirty-six, and again at sixty.

And though I wasn’t allowed to attend your funeral, I have carried your memory like a light that never dims.

Grandpa George was right:

“She’ll hear everything you say.”

So this, and everything that follows, is for you, Mom.

Thank you for giving me the kind of love that never needed more time—only more truth.