At my father’s wake, my eight-year-old sister stayed by his coffin. At my father’s wake, my eight-year-old sister stayed by his coffin: silent, motionless. We thought grief had hardened her heart… until that night, when she lay down beside him, and something happened that no one could have imagined.At my father’s wake, the room was filled with the scent of lilies and muffled sobs. My eight-year-old sister, Lily, stood motionless by the coffin. She didn’t cry, she barely blinked; she just stared at his still face, as if waiting for him to breathe again.
The adults whispered that grief had frozen her, that she was too young to understand death. But I knew my sister; she understood more than many adults could imagine. When the ceremony ended, people began to leave in small groups, murmuring how “strong” we were.Lily refused to leave. It took two family members to gently lift her from the casket and allow the funeral home to close it for the night. She didn’t scream or resist, she just stared at Dad’s face as if she were leaving a part of herself there.hat night, Mom, my stepmother Rebecca, and I went back home. The air was thick, heavy with tension. Rebecca was quiet, wiping away tears every few minutes.
She had only been married to Dad for three years, but she had tried to be a good stepmother… or so I thought. I was sixteen, old enough to notice when something wasn’t right between them. They argued a lot.And in the last few months before the accident, Dad seemed… scared. At bedtime, Lily climbed into my bed instead of her own. She lay stiff, clutching the photo of Dad taken at the wake.I whispered that it was okay to cry, but she didn’t respond. Around midnight, I woke up and saw the light in her room was on. She was gone.
Panic gripped me. I ran downstairs… and froze. The front door was wide open.A cold wind swept down the hallway. I stepped barefoot onto the gravel and followed the dim light from the funeral home across the street. The door was unlocked.Inside, the parlor was dark except for the glow of candles around Dad’s coffin. And there—lying beside him, her head resting on his chest—was Lily. Her eyes were open but calm, her fingers clutching the sleeve of his suit.I was about to call out to her, but then I saw Rebecca behind the coffin, her hands trembling. She shouldn’t be there either. When Lily’s lips moved, murmuring something to our father’s body, Rebecca’s face went pale.
