Things I Didn't Say at the Funeral

I didn’t cry at the funeral.

Not because I wasn’t sad — I was.

I was undone.

But grief doesn’t always look like tears. Sometimes it looks like silence so loud it echoes inside your ribs.

I sat in the third pew, between Aunt Clara’s perfume and my cousin’s hollow stare. The flowers smelled too sweet. The music was too soft. The preacher, who didn’t even know you, read from Psalms like he was ordering lunch.

And all I could think was — I should say something.

But I didn’t.

There are so many things I didn’t say that day, Grandpa.

Things I’ve held in my throat since the moment the phone rang.

I didn’t say that you smelled like cedar and spearmint gum.

That your hugs were awkward and one-armed, but I loved them anyway.

That you always whistled when you cooked eggs and whistled off-key, and I didn’t care.

I didn’t tell them how you used to tap the roof of the car three times whenever we passed the old steel bridge — said it was for luck. I still do it. No one else knows why. But I remember.

I didn’t say how you stayed up with me the night Mom left, just sitting on the porch in silence, not offering words you didn’t have.

How you handed me a mug of cocoa and said, “Some nights we don’t fix things. We just hold them.”

That sentence saved me more times than I can count.

I didn’t say that when I failed my first college class and came home ashamed, you didn’t ask why — you just handed me a wrench and said, “Help me fix the gate.”

You always knew when to talk. And more importantly, when not to.

They called you “a man of few words” at the funeral.

I wanted to stand and shout, No — he just saved his words for when they mattered.

There’s a difference.

They said you were “quiet and strong.”

They didn’t see you weep behind the shed after Grandma died, fists clenched so tightly your knuckles turned bone-white.

They didn’t know that strength can look like grief with no audience.

I wanted to tell them about the time you taught me how to drive stick shift and I stalled six times in a row.

You never raised your voice.

You just said, “Try again. We’ve got time.”

I’ve carried that phrase into every failure since.

At the funeral, I didn’t say I was sorry.

Sorry for every birthday I forgot to call.

Sorry for not visiting more.

Sorry for the last time I saw you — when I was in a rush and hugged you like I had somewhere better to be.

There wasn’t anywhere better.

I wanted to tell them how you believed in second chances — how you forgave Uncle Ray even after all the mess he made.

How you once told me, “No one’s just the worst thing they’ve done.”

How that line made me forgive myself when I thought I couldn’t.

I wanted to tell them you whistled the same tune every morning — even after your hands shook and your knees ached and the world moved too fast around you.

I didn’t say that I still hear your voice sometimes — especially when the world goes quiet.

Like a whisper in the wind that smells faintly of sawdust and coffee.

Like an echo in the garage when I reach for a wrench.

Like a pause between songs on the radio.

But I didn’t say any of that at the funeral.

I sat with my hands folded. I nodded at the right moments. I hugged people I hadn’t seen since I was ten.

And I walked away with every unsaid word buried like folded notes in my coat pocket.

So here it is.

Everything I didn’t say, written too late.

But maybe not too late for me.

Because grief is the love we didn’t know how to give when someone was still around to receive it.

And writing this — maybe that’s my way of giving it now.

If you're still listening, Grandpa...

Tap the roof of the sky for me.

Just three times.

For luck.