I turned thirty a few days ago. There was work, as usual, and the familiar fatigue that no longer feels temporary. For three years now I have been a licensed physician. Each week, hundreds of faces pass before me. I listen, examine, prescribe, reassure. I do my duty carefully, sometimes mechanically, sometimes with genuine concern, and at the end of the day I return home with the sensation that something essential has been spent. Two days ago, I fell ill. It was nothing remarkable. A fever, a heaviness in the chest, the dull irritation of weakness. I would have called it influenza and treated it accordingly, had I been my own patient. But my mother had already decided otherwise. She appeared with her remedies, prepared with the seriousness of a person entrusted with a life. She made steam from cloves, ginger, and herbs whose names I no longer remember, insisting it would ease my breathing. She did not argue with me. She did not ask my opinion. She acted. For fever, she trusted only cold compresses. She brought water, tea, broth, more water than I believed necessary, and watched until I drank it. During the night, I woke to find her hand on my forehead. She was checking my temperature. I asked her, half asleep, why she was awake. She said nothing, only adjusted the blanket. Later, I learned she had chosen to sleep beside my bed. It seemed unnecessary. I did not protest. The following day, while I was at work, she called repeatedly. Each time, the same question: “Are you feeling better?” I answered briefly. There were patients waiting. It is curious how easily one forgets these things. We imagine that mercy is earned through effort, knowledge, usefulness. We believe ourselves independent as long as we remain standing. Illness exposes the falsehood of this belief with remarkable efficiency. A friend once told me that God is kind to us not because of what we do, but because of our mothers. At the time, I smiled politely. Now, lying there, watched over with unnecessary vigilance, I understood him.