Standing in front of everyone, the paper shook in Mara’s hands. She had rewritten the eulogy seven times, maybe more. She’d folded and unfolded it, pressed it flat, smudged it with her thumbprints and tears.
She let herself look at the casket at the front of the chapel. Her chest felt tight and she swallowed hard, as if the act might keep her voice from breaking.
“I don’t know how to stand here and talk about you in the past tense.”
For a second, that was all anyone heard, the echo of her voice, small and hurting. Somebody somewhere in the back sniffled. Mara stared down at that worn paper, blinking away more tears, and forced herself forward.
“I keep writing ‘was’ and wanting to cross it out because in my mind you are still my wife. You’re the first person I look for when something good happens, the first one I want to tell when the day falls apart, the voice I need to hear when I come home. Somewhere deep down, none of that’s changed. I don’t think it ever will.”
She tried to steady herself, eyes catching on the framed photo beside the flowers. There you were, smiling at her, sunlight bright in your hair, love shining right in your eyes.
“People keep asking me what you were like,” she continued. "How do you even begin to answer that? Tell them about how you always took the blankets and then somehow convinced me you hadn’t? Maybe about you dancing right there in the kitchen, bare feet on tile, whenever the radio plays your favorite song. Or how your laugh had this way of taking over a whole room."
Murmurs rippled through the pews, soft laughter mixing with tears, because they all remembered too. For just one tiny second, Mara smiled before it slipped away again.
“Do I tell them that being with you made anywhere feel like home? Just your presence, that’s all it took. There are so many little pieces of you the world will never get to know. The way you’d reach for my hand without even thinking about it. How you’d remember the tiniest things I’d forgotten I’d ever told you. Or how you’d look at me, on my worst days, and I’d start to believe I was actually worthy of love.”
She broke off, fully crying now. She gripped the paper so hard it crumpled, letting her eyes fall to the wood of the casket.
“I can’t..." She sobbed, her voice broking. She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself without success. "I can't... stop thinking about all the ordinary moments we lost. The groceries we’ll never buy together. Silly arguments over whether it’s your night to pick the movie. Trips we never took. Birthdays we won’t celebrate. Or growing old together. When I promised I’d love you forever, I thought forever meant we'd have decades. I wasn't prepared to learn that forever could mean standing in front of your coffin.”
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. The chapel went quiet again as she sobbed softly.
“People... People tell me time heals everything,” Mara murmured, her head shaking, the idea almost made her laugh.
“But I don’t want time to heal you away. I don’t want to wake up and realize I can’t hear your laugh, or remember the feel of your hand in mine, or the way you’d call my name. I don’t want to let that go.”
She covered her mouth, suddenly lost for words. The paper in her hand hung useless at her side. For a moment, the only sound was her breathing, people quietly crying.
When she was finally able to continue, the words barely made it past her lips. “If grief is the price for having loved you, then I’ll pay it every day. I’ll keep carrying it, even if it’s heavy. Because knowing you, loving you is worth every ounce of pain I feel now.”
She took a shaky breath, her eyes slipped shut, holding on for just a bit longer.
“And if somehow… wherever you are… if you can still hear me, I need you to know that I kept my promise. I still love you, I still choose you. Every day, every time and in every lifetime I could ever imagine. If I found you again, I would do it all over without hesitation, even knowing how this ends.” she whispered with other tears.
She could barely get the last words out.
“Goodbye, my love. Until we meet again.”