Several years ago my third daughter was going through a rough patch. Her teen years held a lot of anxiety. She started her first job shortly before her father unexpectedly died. He was her work mentor, and her high school mentor as well. I wanted to help her; I wanted to spend time with her in a way that would not set off “mom nervousness” in her.

This child loves animals and small humans. For elementary science she researched a different animal every day and told me about them. She has a large collection of plush animals, many of them reasonably accurate to real life (except for, you know, plushie fur and squishy bodies).

We played Minecraft for years; she collected every type of animal and colored the sheep every possible color. She organized an enormous mountaintop base with separate pens for each sheep color. Her house was decorated with different colors of wool blocks and carpets. She collected cats and parrots, even rabbits. She had her own caravan of llamas.

By this time, though, she was done playing Minecraft. I cast about for something we could do together. We read books aloud and enjoyed it, but a computer game would be less work for me and more interactive. Stardew Valley came highly recommended, and it was multiplayer. I gave her a copy and bought myself a copy. As soon as we had started a game and her older sisters saw it, they wanted to play, too. Many evenings we sat in a row on the couch and easy chair, all on the same farm, or playing separate farms in the same room.

Of course she built a coop and a barn in game and filled them with chickens, cows, sheep, ducks, pigs. At the time you could only have one pet cat per farm. The suggested cat name was “Miso”. She and I laughed at this. She then named every other animal after a soup: miso soup, clam chowder, beef stew. We spent many happy hours in the game, together and each alone.

She went on to marry a doctor in game and had two adorable toddlers. My older daughters chose different companions. I befriended the six bachelors and six bachelorettes, but none of them interested me as companions. Eventually the sun came up in our lives, and we played other games in our spare time. This faux-life, with internal goals and generous rewards, filled a real need. Many times we cried and laughed and talked. It helped us heal.