After my mother-in-law passed away, I started helping my father-in-law with laundry and other chores.

At first, I thought the strange laundry rule was only about grief.

Every time I walked past the kitchen carrying a basket of clothes, my father-in-law would look up and ask the same question in the same quiet, serious voice:

“Did you remember the aspirin?”

Not detergent.
Not fabric softener.
Aspirin.