I stood beside her c🇴ffin, trying to stay strong as my hands trembled, knowing our unborn child rested within her—when a sudden movement from her belly shattered the silence, turning grief into sh🇴ck as cries for doctors erupted around me.
There’s a version of this story I used to tell myself in the weeks after it happened—a cleaner version, one where everything lined up in a way that made sense, where cause led neatly to effect and pain had a purpose you could point to. But the truth, the real version, is messier than that. It loops back on itself, gets stuck in certain moments, skips others entirely, and leaves you holding pieces that don’t quite fit together no matter how long you stare at them.
It starts in a room that smelled like lilies.
That’s the detail that stuck with me more than anything else—not the polished wood of the coffin, not the quiet sobs, not even the way people avoided my eyes like grief might be contagious—but the overwhelming sweetness of those flowers, thick and artificial, trying too hard to make death feel gentle.
I stood beside the coffin with my hands trembling so badly I had to press them together just to keep them still. Someone had told me, earlier that morning, to be strong. Not directly, not in those exact words, but it was implied in every look, every soft pat on the shoulder, every carefully measured sentence people used when they didn’t know what else to say.
Be strong.
