Beloved Wife, Mother, Daughter, Friend
‘Love Never Ends’
The dates carved below marked a life cut tragically short — just thirty-two years from beginning to end.
Sunny stood frozen several feet away, suddenly overwhelmed by the reality of what she was doing. This wasn’t just a symbolic gesture; she was standing at the physical resting place of a woman who had loved the same man, mothered the same children, walked the same halls of the house Sunny now called home.
A gust of wind rustled the trees overhead, sending a few early autumn leaves spiraling down around her. One landed at her feet — a perfect maple leaf, its edges just beginning to turn golden. Sunny bent to pick it up, running her finger along its delicate veins like a roadmap of a life fully lived, however briefly. The leaf felt cool and slightly damp against her palm, a tangible connection to the changing seasons, to the cycle of life that continued despite loss.
“You can do this,” she whispered to herself, closing her fingers around the leaf. “You need to do this.”
With the wildflowers clutched to her chest, Sunny closed the remaining distance to Kate’s grave. She knelt carefully on the grass beside the headstone, the dew immediately soaking through the knees of her jeans, a cold reminder of her physical presence in this solemn place. She arranged the flowers in the small built-in vase. They looked right there, as if they belonged — just as Kate would always belong in the hearts of Liam, Maddie, and Hailey.
Sunny realized she’d been silent for several minutes, just staring at the engraved name, unsure how to begin this one-sided conversation. What do you say to the woman whose absence created the space you now occupy? What words could possibly bridge the gulf between them?
“Hi, Kate,” she finally said, her voice sounding small in the vastness of the cemetery.“I’m Sunny. But…” she laughed nervously, “I guess you probably know that.”
The absurdity of the situation suddenly struck her — sitting here talking to a headstone, as if expecting a response. Yet, something about being in this place, surrounded by the peaceful quiet, made it feel right. Necessary.
“This feels strange,” Sunny continued, settling more comfortably on the grass. “But I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a long time. Needing to, actually.”
A cloud passed over the sun, casting the cemetery in temporary shadow. Sunny shivered slightly, pulling her cardigan tighter around her shoulders.
“When I first started caring for your family, I felt like an intruder in your space,” she admitted softly. “Walking hallways that should have been yours, tending to children you should have raised, standing beside a man who still keeps your memory so close to his heart.”
The wind picked up again, rustling the wildflowers she’d brought. It almost felt like a response, like Kate was somehow listening.
“I want you to know that I never set out for any of this to happen,” Sunny continued, her words coming easier now.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small object, cradling it in her palm — the beaded bracelet Maddie had given her when she was leaving, the one the little girl had made herself, painstakingly threading colorful beads onto a string during arts and crafts time.
“So you don’t forget us,”Maddie had said, pressing it into Sunny’s hand.
As if she could ever forget.
“They talk about you all the time,” Sunny told Kate, running her finger over the bracelet’s uneven beads. “Maddie remembers the songs you used to sing during bath time. Hailey keeps your picture by her bed and says goodnight to it every evening. They love you so much, Kate. That’s never going to change.”
A lone tear slipped down Sunny’s cheek, followed quickly by another. She didn’t bother wiping them away.
“I feel like I know you, in a way,” she continued. “Through the stories Liam tells when something reminds him of you. Through the way Maddie tilts her head when she’s thinking — just like you did in that photo on the mantel. Through the chocolate chip cookie recipe in your handwriting that Beth still uses because, according to her, no one could ever improve on Kate Anderson’s cookies.”
The memory of finding that recipe card brought a small smile to Sunny’s face. Beth had been hesitant to show it to her at first, as if it were a sacred artifact. But then the older woman had said something that struck Sunny deeply: “Kate would have wanted the girls to have these cookies. She never kept joy to herself.”
“I think that’s why they let me in,” Sunny said softly. “Because you taught them how to love openly, generously. Even after you were gone, that remained.”
She traced her fingers over the cool, smooth surface of the headstone, feeling the indentations of the letters that spelled Kate’s name.
“I grew up without a real family,” she confided, the words spilling out now like water through a broken dam. “Bounced from foster home to foster home, never staying anywhere long enough to put down roots. The closest thing I had to a parent was my stepfather, and then I lost him too.”
She looked up at the shifting clouds, gathering her thoughts.
“I thought I understood loss when my stepfather died. But being with your family, seeing how grief reshapes everything… it’s taught me so much about how we carry those we’ve lost. They become part of our landscape, changing how we see everything that follows.”
Sunny paused, running her fingers through the damp grass beside the grave.
“I never thought I’d find a place where I belonged. Then I met your daughters — these incredible, resilient, loving little girls who somehow had room in their hearts for me despite everything they’d been through. And Liam…”
Sunny’s voice faltered as she thought of him — his strength, his vulnerability, the way he looked at her as if she contained the answers to questions he’d been afraid to ask.
