I never imagined I would have to bury my daughter before I turned sixty.
There are some pains a body simply does not know how to carry. They do not stay in your chest where they belong. They spread everywhere—into your throat, your bones, the backs of your eyes, even your hands. At Emily’s funeral, I felt that grief in every part of me.
The church was full. Emily had always been the kind of person who remembered birthdays, brought soup when someone was sick, and stayed late to clean up without being asked. People came because she had mattered. Because she had been gentle in a world that often rewarded sharp elbows and hard hearts.
At the front of the church sat a white casket covered in lilies and pale roses. Beside it was a framed photograph of my daughter smiling the way she always did when she was trying to make everyone else feel okay.
She had been only twenty-nine.
Just a month earlier, she had sat at my kitchen table in a soft blue sweater, one hand resting on the small curve of her pregnant belly, smiling too brightly as she told me everything was fine.
“It’s just stress, Mom,” she had said when I asked why she looked so tired.
Then she reached for her tea, and her sleeve pulled back just enough for me to catch the fading yellow shadow near her wrist.
I saw it.
She saw me see it.
And still, she smiled.
“I’m just clumsy.”
I wanted to demand the truth. I wanted to march to Ethan Caldwell’s house and tear the door from its hinges. But Emily had already become skilled at protecting him with excuses.
“He’s under pressure at work.”
“He didn’t mean it like that.”
“It’ll get better.”
Then she placed her hand over mine and whispered the sentence that had haunted me ever since.
“When the baby comes, everything will change.”
I had wanted to believe her. God help me, I had.
