: Chapter 43

Seeing my mother’s casket lowered into her grave is one of the most surreal moments of my life. How can someone that important, that precious, be contained in a wooden box? How can someone so full of life so suddenly be gone? How can the final page of the story of her life have been turned? I stare at the flower-draped pine, struggling to believe that she is actually inside it.

It didn’t feel real until today. But seeing this, seeing her disappear into the ground, is starting to make it so, and that reality is brutal. It’s like my emotional tendons and ligaments are being stretched and torn, and my mind might never recover. I will never be the same shape again.

The service was beautiful in its own way. So many people came to say goodbye to her. People she used to work with in her many jobs, friends from the neighborhood, the men and women who lived near her. Nurse Jenny. My mom touched a lot of lives, and it was moving to see them all there, paying tribute.

I cried as I delivered the eulogy, my hands trembling on the folded notes that I could barely see. I spoke of her beautiful spirit, her generosity, her wicked sense of humor. Of her love of the finer things in life, like pistachio cannoli and Harrison Ford. The gathered mourners listened to me talk about how much she meant to me and how she made me feel like the world was at my feet, mine for the taking. I spoke of everything and nothing, and even if I’d spoken for a month straight, I couldn’t possibly have said enough.

Drake’s eyes were on mine throughout, and I took comfort in that. My friends were all there, and Chad came with his parents too. Whatever our present, our past tied us all together.

Now, standing at the graveside in the drizzling rain as Drake shields me with a black umbrella, I wonder how I will move on from this. I wonder how people survive this pain, how they don’t simply throw themselves on top of the casket as it slides into the earth, begging to stay with those they love.

I am not the first person to lose a parent, I know. But it is the first time it has happened to me, and I don’t know what to do with all this pain. It’s filling me, suffocating me, choking me. I know Drake is worried, but I don’t seem able to tell him to stop. Last night, he cooked me a dinner that I couldn’t eat and held me in his arms while neither of us slept. We were physically together, but emotionally, I felt a distance between us that added to my sadness.

He loves me, I know he does, but I’m still concerned that this is all too much for him. That his own grief is lurking directly beneath the surface, waiting to be triggered by my own. There isn’t enough room in the world for all our suffering, and I feel like it’s starting to define us.

Drake holds me steady as the pastor reads from Ecclesiastes, telling us that to everything, there is a season. A time to be born and a time to die.

I turn into his chest, burying my face in his rain-soaked shirt. I hate this season. I hate this day. I hate the mom-shaped hole that now dominates my life.

The service draws to a close, and people head back to their cars. There will be a small gathering back at Mom’s house, and I’m already dreading it.

“You okay?” Drake whispers.

I cling to him tighter. “I don’t know.”

“Just a few more hours to get through, mi rosa.” He kisses the top of my head. “I know this is hard, but you’re doing great.”

Am I though? I feel as if I’m sleepwalking through this. Like I’m sedated. It’s as though my mind has numbed my senses to help me survive.

Chad is one of the last to leave, and he strides toward us. My feelings about him are complicated, but I’m grateful to him for coming and for the huge funeral bouquet he had delivered.

“Thank you, Chad, for the flowers. They were beautiful.”

His gaze flickers to Drake, and tension shoots through me as the two men look each other up and down. Drake looks away first, and I love him for it. I know how much it cost him and that he did it for me.

“You’re welcome, Mimi. Sunflowers, right? They were always her favorite. I remember you filling the whole house with them for her fiftieth birthday. She looked so happy when she walked through the door—like a little girl. Then the year after, when it was your turn, she filled the place with your favorite, yellow roses.”

I smile at the memory and am pleased that I still can. Sometimes I feel like I’ll never smile easily again. But surely there will be a day when her memory won’t hurt this much. There has to be.

I think of Drake and his brothers and their father and how they all found a way to move past their loss. Drake. I look up into his handsome face. This is simply one season for us, a season that will pass. One day soon, we’ll have sunflowers and roses again.