Five years. That is the exact span of time I had spent measuring the world in gravel and gray stone. Every Saturday, without fail, I walked the same predictable path through Oakwood Cemetery. Seattle doesn’t offer much in the way of comfort for the grieving; the sky is a permanent shroud of charcoal, and the rain falls with a quiet, persistent indifference that soaks into your skin and stays there.That morning was a mirror of a hundred others. The drizzle was that fine, misty sort that feels harmless until you realize your jacket is heavy and your bones are shivering. I always parked at the furthest reaches of the lot. The long walk served a purpose—it was a transition zone, a space where I could shed the skin of a “functioning adult” and prepare to become the father of a dead son. I’d become an expert at the metamorphosis.

But as I rounded the final bend of the weeping willows, the script changed.Someone was at Ethan’s grave.They weren’t just standing there, reading the inscription with the detached curiosity of a stranger. They were kneeling. Their arms were wrapped tightly around the cold granite headstone as if it were a living, breathing person. The figure was hunched, curved into the stone in a posture of ancient, primal sorrow.My chest constricted. Oakwood was a gated sanctuary; you didn’t just wander onto these private plots. And you certainly didn’t touch my son’s headstone with that kind of intimacy unless you had earned the right.