To Eli
I Saw Your Favorite Cereal Today
I saw your favorite cereal at the grocery store and reached for it without thinking.
That was the strange part. My body remembered before my mind did. For three years, I bought two boxes because you always finished the first one too quickly. I used to complain about it, but I liked knowing exactly what would make you happy on an ordinary Tuesday morning.
I put the box back.
It felt dramatic for something so small, but grief hides in the shelves we walk past every week. It waits in shampoo scents, songs playing over store speakers, and the brand of hot sauce you insisted was the only good one.
I am not writing because I want another chance. I am writing because loving you changed the shape of my days, and sometimes the old shape still appears.
I hope you are eating breakfast. I hope you are sleeping better. I hope someone laughs when you tell the same story for the third time.
I put the cereal back, paid for my groceries, and drove home. It hurt, but I did it. That is what moving forward looks like today.
That was the strange part. My body remembered before my mind did. For three years, I bought two boxes because you always finished the first one too quickly. I used to complain about it, but I liked knowing exactly what would make you happy on an ordinary Tuesday morning.
I put the box back.
It felt dramatic for something so small, but grief hides in the shelves we walk past every week. It waits in shampoo scents, songs playing over store speakers, and the brand of hot sauce you insisted was the only good one.
I am not writing because I want another chance. I am writing because loving you changed the shape of my days, and sometimes the old shape still appears.
I hope you are eating breakfast. I hope you are sleeping better. I hope someone laughs when you tell the same story for the third time.
I put the cereal back, paid for my groceries, and drove home. It hurt, but I did it. That is what moving forward looks like today.
