The question my mother asks whenever I’m spiraling

The conversation started before dinner

Nobody in this family agrees quietly. The question was simple enough; the answers were not. It is annoyingly practical. This may be why it works as a question.

“Know what happened. Be careful deciding what it means.”

That distinction—between an event and the story attached to it—became the part we kept returning to. Not because it settles everything, but because it changes the quality of the argument.