I arrived at my husband’s funeral prepared to say goodbye to the love of my life. I wasn’t prepared to leave with a question that would keep me awake all night.
The hymn ended, and I gripped the pew’s edge. If I let go, I was certain I’d slide right onto the church floor in front of everyone.
Ismael sat on my left, his big hand steady on my shoulder. Reyna sat to my right, quietly crying into a folded tissue that had long since given up on its job.
I gripped the pew’s edge.
“Mom, you’re shaking,” Reyna, my daughter, whispered.
“I’m alright, honey.”
“You don’t have to be.”
I couldn’t answer her. If I opened my mouth again, the sound that came out wouldn’t belong to a 54-year-old woman. It would belong to a girl who’d just lost the boy she met at 27 and never let go of.
Twenty-seven years. That was how long Archer and I had been together. I honestly thought we’d grow old together because he was the love of my life, and Lord knows, we had a happy marriage.
We raised Ismael and Reyna in the same house, with the crooked porch step Archer kept promising to fix. On Sunday mornings, my husband hummed while making coffee, always the same tune, some old song his father used to sing.
I honestly thought we’d grow old together.
Two years ago, the doctor said the word “cancer,” and I decided, right there in that office, that we would beat it. I believed it through every round of treatment, despite how serious the prognosis was. I believed it when he lost the weight, the hair, and the color in his cheeks.
I believed it until the morning last week when he squeezed my hand once and never again.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
TAP ” READ MORE ” 👇
