At my husband’s funeral, my daughter stared straight at me and said in front of everyone, “You’re the one who should be in that coffin—not Dad.” I didn’t argue. I didn’t defend myself. I stayed silent, shattered inside, holding myself together only because the weight of the moment demanded dignity. The day we buried Javier Morales, my husband of twenty-seven years, the sky above San Isidro Cemetery was a dull gray, the kind that presses down on your chest and makes every breath feel earned.
I remember the smell of damp earth, the sound of shoes crunching softly on gravel, the way my black dress clung to me as if it too understood grief. Javier had died suddenly of a heart attack, collapsing in our kitchen while I was in the next room making coffee. One moment he was laughing about a neighbor’s ridiculous dog, the next he was on the floor, his eyes unfocused, my screams echoing uselessly against the walls of a home we had built together brick by brick. The shock hadn’t worn off by the time of the funeral; it had simply hardened into something cold and heavy.
