My son and his wife asked me to watch their two-month-old baby while they went shopping. But no matter how I held him or tried to calm him, he kept crying uncontrollably. I immediately sensed something was wrong. When I lifted his clothes to check his diaper… I froze. There was something there… something unimaginable. My hands started shaking. I grabbed him and rushed straight to the hospital.

I never do that now.

If something feels wrong, I move.

Because babies are too small for our hesitation.

And because sometimes the difference between catastrophe and recovery is only one woman refusing to doubt what her fear is trying to tell her.

Noah threw his arms around my neck last week in one of those full-bodied toddler hugs that arrive without warning and almost knock your glasses off.

“Gamma,” he said into my shoulder, because he still cannot quite manage Grandma.

I held him.