I looked at Eli.
He looked startled.
Then moved.
“Yes,” he said softly. “If your mom thinks it’s okay.”
So we went.
Lily placed a small painted stone near Anna’s grave.
“It has a bird,” she explained. “Mommy said Anna liked birds.”
Eli knelt beside the grave and cried silently.
Lily patted his shoulder with grave tenderness.
“Crying is okay,” she said.
He laughed through tears.
“Your mom teach you that?”
“Yes. Also Uncle Daniel, but he cries at dog commercials.”
True.
Completely true.
That day, as we walked back to the car, Eli took my hand.
Not dramatically.
Not secretly.
His fingers simply found mine.
I looked at him.
He looked back.
No rescue.
No debt.
No confusion.
Just two people who had walked through separate griefs long enough to meet on the other side without asking the other to become medicine.
I squeezed his hand.
That was how we began.
