The cardboard box filled with sympathy cards was still in my hands when my son looked at me and quietly said, “That’s what Dad said you’d do.”
I didn’t understand what he meant.
Not then.
My husband, Richard, had been dead for only a few hours, and somehow I was still moving from one task to another as if there were a checklist for grief.
What I didn’t know was that Richard had kept the truth about his final argument with our son from me for four months.
And now Daniel was standing inside his father’s funeral wearing a faded pink woman’s dress.
Then he reached into the pocket.
What he pulled out made my entire world stop.
By nine that morning, I had already corrected the spelling on one of the flower cards, found an extra chair for Richard’s elderly cousin, reminded the funeral director that my husband hated organ music, and answered the same question about the reception six separate times.
“Tisha, sit down.”
My sister touched my elbow.
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve said that all morning.”
“Because I am.”
I wasn’t.
Not even close.
Richard was lying only ten feet away from me in a polished wooden casket.
My husband of so many years was gone.
And our only son still hadn’t arrived.
I looked toward the chapel doors again.
Nothing.
I checked my phone.
Nothing.
Daniel should have been standing beside me.
He should have been helping me say goodbye to his father.
Instead, I was standing there alone, organizing flowers, chairs, food, sympathy cards, and everyone else’s grief.
It was what I had always done.
Fix things.
Keep things moving.
Make sure nobody else had to worry.
But there was one thing I couldn’t fix.
My husband was dead.
And my son was missing.
