The lost stroller.
The coffee I spilled on myself at the airport Starbucks.
The woman in row 14 who sighed every time Sophie shifted in her seat.
And the heaviness in my chest that always arrived in November.
Tomorrow was the anniversary of my wife’s death.
Elena had been gone three years.
Three years since the hospital room. Roommates& Shares
Three years since Sophie stood in our kitchen in her dinosaur pajamas asking why Mommy wasn’t coming home.
Three years since I started putting red roses in a glass vase every November because Elena used to say, “A house without flowers feels like it stopped breathing.”
I bought those roses at the airport because grief makes you loyal to strange little rituals.
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