I didn’t set out to write a book. This started as notes — a few stories I wanted to hold onto before they got lost or rewritten by time.

Then one story led to another. And before I knew it, I wasn’t just remembering my mother — I was trying to understand her.

Joyce wasn’t perfect. None of us are. She was strong, funny, stubborn, and complicated. She carried more than most people ever knew, and she didn’t always talk about it. But every so often, she’d let something slip — a story, a comment, a piece of her past that made you stop and think, oh, that’s where I get it from.

I wanted to capture that. The little moments. The things that made her who she was.

This book isn’t meant to glorify her, or to explain her. It’s just meant to see her — as a woman, not just a mother. And maybe, in doing that, I started to see myself a little more clearly too.

If you’ve ever tried to piece together where you come from, or make sense of how one generation shapes the next, then you already know what this book is about.

It’s family. It’s memory. It’s love in all its messy, imperfect forms.

— Butch Chelliah