My Stepfather Expected My Mom to Clean and Shovel Snow on a Broken Leg

When I moved away for college, I honestly believed the distance would finally give my mom room to breathe. New city, new routine, fewer demands—maybe she’d get to live for herself for once.

Instead, I learned something hard: you can be miles away and still feel the moment something is wrong.

My mom was the kind of person who never stopped giving

My mother, Paula, spent her whole life taking care of everyone else. First my dad, then me, then her career. She worked long hours as a hospital administrator—the dependable one who knew every nurse’s birthday, every ongoing issue, every detail people forgot. And even after all that, she’d come home and keep going: laundry, cleaning, organizing, making sure everything looked “right.”

So when she told me she was dating someone from work, I felt relieved. She deserved companionship. She deserved someone who would notice her exhaustion and tell her to sit down—not someone who added to it.