It was a letter. A letter handed to her with a curt nod by a man in uniform, his look of sympathy not helping ease the inevitable pain that would come from reading that letter. She didn't open it. She just dropped to her knees, tears flowing freely down her face.
It hurt her. Months had passed and that letter sat there in the study - in his study - wrinkled and stained from all the times she had opened and read it. From all the times her tears had spilled out onto it.
She hated it. Why hadn't she thrown it away. Why hadn't she gotten rid of it? Why did she leave it in the one place that brought a bittersweet smile to her face back when he was still alive? Now the only thing to grace her face when she steps into the room is the wetness from her tears.
Friends urged her to stop going into the study, but she couldn't help it. It was the only thing left that was all him. Everything about the old room was him. From the clutter of old sketches and drawings, to the crumpled up sheet music. It smelled of him, it felt like him, it was him.
She would never feel his lips on hers and taste the mint of his breath. She would never hear his voice that would always fill the house with a sweet melody. She would never be able to press herself against him and feel his heartbeat against her chest and smell the cinnamon on his shirt.
He was gone.
A year had gone and she no longer broke down sobbing in the middle of the kitchen. She had stopped staring off into space every time someone talked about the colours red and white. She had finally stopped grieving.
She decided it was time to straighten up the old study. Gather all the drawings into stacks and throw away the crumpled up songs.
She was doing a good job, any tears that managed to leak out she was able to blame on the dust that had accumulated over time.
She was just about done when she found it. The sobs came out and she couldn't stop them. She didn't want to stop them. She felt they needed to come out. They needed an escape.
Her hands dropped into her lap, the picture laying there loosely in her grasp. She tried not to let her tears ruin the perfect white dress that enveloped the woman in the picture, or the crisp and clean tuxedo that the man wore beside her. She tried not to let her tears ruin the flowers in the woman's hand, or the happy, joyful smiles on their faces.
She brought the picture to her chest and hugged it tightly. The salt of her grief slipped into the corners of her mouth and she bowed her head. She shut her eyes as if that were a way to stop the tears from flowing as she whispered the only thing she could;
"I miss you."