The gravel beneath my funeral shoes seemed to crunch louder than it should have.
I stood beside the road, holding my handbag against my chest, and watched my son’s SUV disappear into the distance.
For several seconds, I couldn’t move.
The vehicle grew smaller, passed the bend, and finally vanished beyond the cornfields.
He never looked back.
Neither did my daughter.
That was the moment I realized something I had been refusing to admit since my husband died.
My children hadn’t come home to help me grieve.
They had come home to settle an estate.
And apparently, in their minds, I were part of the estate that needed to be dealt with.
Three days earlier, I had been standing beside my husband’s grave.
People surrounded me with flowers, casseroles, hugs, and well-meaning words.
“He was a good man.”
“He lived a full life.”
“At least he isn’t suffering anymore.”
I knew people meant well.
But none of those sentences could fill the empty space beside me.
My husband had been my companion for more than four decades. We had raised children together, survived lean years, built a business from practically nothing, paid a mortgage, repaired roofs, celebrated birthdays, argued over silly things, made up, and grown old together.
Then, suddenly, he was gone.
And before I had even figured out how to sleep on my own side of the bed, my children were talking about paperwork.
“We Need to Talk About Next Steps”
The morning after the funeral, I made coffee for two.
I didn’t realize what I was doing until I placed a second cup on the counter.
For a moment, I just stared at it.
Then I poured it down the sink.
That small act nearly broke me.
The house was painfully quiet.
My husband’s chair sat exactly where he’d left it. His reading glasses were still on the end table. A newspaper he’d started reading remained folded beside them.
Everything looked normal.
Everything except him.
I was standing at the kitchen window when my son walked into the dining room carrying his laptop.
He opened it on the table we’d bought nearly thirty years earlier.
My daughter sat beside him.
Neither one asked how I’d slept.
Neither asked whether I’d eaten.
My son cleared his throat.
“Mom, we need to talk about next steps.”
I remember those words because they sounded so cold.
Next steps.
Not “How are you?”
