I met June when we were twenty-two, both young and broke but endlessly hopeful. She worked double shifts at a campus café and somehow still had enough light left to make everyone feel seen. By twenty-five, we were sharing a tiny apartment above a bakery, living on laughter, burnt coffee, and plans for a future we couldn’t yet afford. We married under string lights in my sister’s backyard, June barefoot in a pale blue dress, whispering that she didn’t want perfection — she wanted us.

When she told me she was pregnant, we cried on the kitchen floor, terrified and overjoyed. We never found out the baby’s sex — we just prayed for “healthy.” But when our daughter was born, June’s joy cracked into panic. “That’s not my baby,” she whispered through tears. She wasn’t rejecting our child; she was confronting her own reflection — all the fears and shame of growing up told that girls were weak, small, less. She broke not from disappointment, but from the echo of her father’s voice telling her that being a girl was never enough.

I took her hand and promised that our daughter would never feel that way. We’d raise her to know her strength, to see her worth as something no one could diminish. June held our baby, trembling, and whispered, “Hi, sweetheart. I’m your mom.” We named her Victoria — Tori — because, as June said through a shaky smile, “She’s going to win.”

Months later, I caught June whispering apologies over Tori’s crib, vowing to unlearn her fear and walk beside her daughter through every challenge. Listening from the doorway, I realized what love truly means: it’s not perfection or certainty — it’s staying, protecting, rebuilding. June thought she’d pass down her pain, but she didn’t. She passed down courage. And I’ll spend my life protecting both of them — always.