The Wall

I made dinner tonight and caught myself plating the food like she was still coming downstairs. Not consciously. Just muscle memory. One extra plate. One extra place at the counter. One extra person in the shape of my routine. I stood there staring at it like an idiot. That’s what grief does. It turns you into a haunted version of yourself. Your hands keep doing things your heart can’t survive. The kids were arguing about something stupid, normal kid stuff, and I had to snap back into dad mode like I hadn’t just been gutted by a plate. That’s the part people don’t see. Grief is not some dramatic sad movie all the time. Sometimes it’s just a regular Tuesday where a plate on a counter rips your chest open and you still have to ask who spilled juice on the floor. I cleaned it up. I put the extra plate away. And it felt like I erased her all over again.