Disclaimer: I own nothing.
My son- my baby son had died just a week prior to this. It's late January, and I'm looking at the casket which holds him.
"Gabriel," I say, looking down at the open casket. I gently lift his chin, I close his eyes, never to look at those blue irises again. How could I be so blind? I can't help the itch to touch him, to hold him one last time. He was like a shadow passing in the dark—gone before we had a chance.
I realize all the things he'd never do. All the things Diana wanted him to do, all the things I wanted him to learn. The talks we'd never have. The weekends we'd never spend, the "grown up" places we'd never go.
Those weeks full of tears. We ignored his crying. I just said "make a man out of him." How could I be so ignorant? He was gone because I ignored him. The things he would do, small moments we would have—all left behind. He was a ghost of the past, now. Diana and I were the only ones left behind.