What Remains

Day 13 of the 30 Days of Fantasy

It’s been a year.
The missing of you hasn’t softened
not the way people said it might.
You were woven into every fiber of my days,
stitched into the rhythms of this house.
Even now, I hear your footsteps creak the third stair
when the night settles quiet enough to listen.

A year of waking,
breathing,
moving forward
because this world does not pause for grief.
Not for one heartbeat.
Not even ours.

I see signs sometimes
a bird that lands too close on the park bench,
unafraid, as if it remembers the sound of your voice.
A dragonfly settled on my desk
as I wrote the thank you cards too late to matter.

Last week, every light turned green for me
from here to the library.
You used to joke that meant we were blessed.
I think it was you.
Still clearing paths.

Today, I opened your old service jacket
the one I said I’d finally donate.
It smelled of cedar and dust, old memories flooded back.
And from the cuff,
a small square of paper slipped to the floor.
Folded neat.
Your handwriting.

“You’re doing better than you think.”

I sat down on the laundry room floor and wept
like I’d just learned you were gone all over again.
But I pressed the note to my chest,
and I stayed.

Now they’re showing up more often
not every day, not loud
but tucked into the quiet.
Inside the cover of your favorite book,
in the pocket of the coat I wore the night you proposed.

“It’s okay to rest.”
“You remembered the song.”
“I still laugh when you dance alone in the kitchen.”

You never signed them.
You didn’t need to.

I know you by the shape of comfort
folded in the lines.

“Keep going.”
“You’re still mine.”
“And I’m still yours.”

~by Heather Patton / The Verdant Butterfly

30 Days of Fantasy — A Writing Challenge for the Wonder-Hungry

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