At my husband’s funeral, no one came except me. Our children chose parties over their father’s final goodbye.

Next week. As if dead men wait.

After the service, I walked alone behind the pallbearers. I didn’t cry. Not because I wasn’t grieving—I had been grieving for months—but because there’s a kind of sorrow so deep it sits motionless inside you like an anchor. That day, I was already buried under it.

The cemetery was nearly deserted. One old groundskeeper watched from a distance, his hand resting on a spade. The coffin was lowered, the prayers whispered. Dust met wood. Wood met silence.

I stood a while after the others left. My heels sank slightly into the earth, and I felt the wind catch my coat. The headstone would be placed later. For now there was only a simple plaque with George’s name.

George Holloway. Beloved husband. Father. Forgotten.