After my wife died, the world did not stop.
That was the cruelest part.
Bills still came in the mail.
Laundry still piled up in corners. The fridge still had to be filled. My daughter still cried for her mother at night, even though she was barely two and did not understand why no one answered when she asked for “Mama.”
My son had just turned one, too young to know what he had lost, but old enough to reach for me with both hands when I came home, as if I was the only thing holding his small world together.
And I was barely holding myself together.