I was fifty-five years old, newly widowed after thirty-six years of marriage, when something I discovered at my husband’s funeral made me wonder if I’d ever truly known the man I loved.
The day everything changed without warning
For the first time since I was nineteen, I didn’t have anyone to call my husband. His name was Greg—Raymond Gregory on every official document, but always just Greg to me. We’d built a life together that wasn’t particularly dramatic or fairytale-perfect, but it was ours. It was the quiet kind of marriage constructed from grocery lists, oil changes, and his insistence on always taking the seat closest to the restaurant window “in case some idiot drives through it.”
Then one rainy Tuesday afternoon, a delivery truck didn’t stop in time at an intersection. One phone call. One rushed trip to the hospital. One doctor with exhausted eyes saying “I’m so sorry,” and just like that, my entire existence was divided into Before and After.
By the day of the viewing, I felt completely hollow inside. I’d cried so intensely that my skin actually hurt to touch. My sister Laura had to zip up my black dress because my hands wouldn’t stop trembling long enough for me to do it myself.
