The Things I Never Said at Her Funeral

I didn’t speak at her funeral.

Not because I didn’t want to, but because I couldn’t. Because my voice caught somewhere between my ribs and my throat and refused to come out. Because the things I had to say didn’t feel like they’d fit in a neat paragraph of remembrance. Because how do you summarize a person in a few minutes when they took up your whole heart for years?

So I sat in the second row, hands clenched, jaw tight, and watched strangers tell stories about her—stories that were sweet, kind, safe. They said she had a lovely laugh. That she lit up a room. That she was always the first to help. All true. But none of them spoke about the time she cried on the kitchen floor for hours and said, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” No one mentioned how she used to talk to plants like they were old friends or how she always left a light on in the hallway—not because she was afraid of the dark, but because she worried I might be.

I wanted to say all of that. I wanted to stand and scream, *“You didn’t really know her—not like I did.”* But I stayed silent.

---

I wrote it all down later. In the little leather notebook she gave me on our third anniversary. The one with the ink-stained pages and the cracked spine. She loved that notebook. She said, “Now you have no excuse not to write.”

Page one of that notebook is still blank.

But page twenty-seven is where this story begins.

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She was the kind of person who didn’t need to be the center of attention, yet somehow always was. Not because she was loud or demanding—she hated that. But because people naturally bent toward her, like sunflowers to light. She made you feel like the only person in the room. When she asked how you were, she waited for the real answer.

We met at a bookstore. Cliché, maybe, but no less magical. I was browsing the poetry section, and she handed me a worn copy of Mary Oliver’s *“Devotions.”* She said, “You look like someone who needs this.”

She was right. I was.

---

We were together five years.

Five years of long walks and short tempers, late-night laughter and early-morning quiet. She had a way of making even the most ordinary moments feel cinematic. Coffee in mismatched mugs. Rain against the window. Her feet always cold against mine under the covers.

She battled depression quietly. Not in a dramatic way. No grand gestures or hospital visits. Just a slow withdrawing. A soft fading. There were days she barely left bed, when even brushing her hair felt like a victory. But she always smiled for other people. Always gave more than she had.

One night, not long before she passed, she said to me, “Promise me you’ll remember the good parts.”

I didn’t understand then what she meant. I do now.

---

They said it was sudden.

To most people, it probably was. An unexpected complication. A heart that stopped before it should have. But to me, it felt like a long goodbye. Like she’d been preparing for it in little ways. Quietly tying up loose ends. Giving away her favorite books. Leaving post-it notes in random places. One inside the kettle: *“Don’t forget to drink water.”* Another on the mirror: *“You are still here. That counts.”*

She left me a letter too. Folded in three, sealed with a lipstick kiss.

> “I’m sorry if I hurt you. I never meant to. Loving you was the safest I ever felt. But some things inside me couldn’t be fixed. I hope you keep writing. I hope you remember me when it rains. I hope you forgive me.”

>

> “And I hope—most of all—that you speak. Even when it hurts.”

>

> – A.

---

I read that letter every week for the first few months. And then one day, I stopped needing to. Because it lived in me now, word for word.

I visit her grave sometimes, when the air feels heavy or the silence too sharp. I sit in the chair I placed next to her stone. I talk to her like she never left.

And I write. Every time I go, I bring the same notebook. The one she gave me. I write the things I didn’t say at her funeral. The memories that flood me when I smell jasmine or hear a sad song. The apologies I never got to make. The laughter I wish she’d heard.

I write them all.

---

I’ve learned something about grief: it doesn’t ask your permission. It arrives uninvited, stays longer than you’d like, and makes a home in the softest parts of you. But it also teaches you to cherish what remains.

Her voice still echoes in my head. Sometimes it whispers. Sometimes it roars.

But lately, I’ve started whispering back.

I think she’d like that.

---

**Author’s Note:**

Some stories are too big for funerals. Too raw for podiums. If you’ve ever lost someone and stayed silent, know this: you’re not alone. Grief has no script, and love has no expiration date.

Write. Speak. Cry. Laugh.

Even if they can’t hear you anymore—*you* still need to say it.