After my husband died, I took a night job at the hospital. Every night, the same cab driver brought me home, I always saved him a cup of coffee. One night, he missed my exit and said: “Your neighbor is watching you.Do not go home. Tomorrow, I’ll show you why.” The night shift doesn’t care that your husband is four months in the ground. It starts at 11:00 and it ends at 7.And in between you move trays, wipe counters, and smile at people who are too sick to notice whether your smile is real. Mine hasn’t been real in four months. My name is Wen Freeman, and I want to tell you something that took me a long time to understand.The thing that almost killed me wasn’t the grief. It was everything I didn’t know while I was busy grieving. But I’m getting ahead of myself.Odell went on a Tuesday. No warning. He was standing in the kitchen pouring his second cup of coffee and then he wasn’t standing anymore.

By the time the paramedics got there, the coffee was still warm. That’s the detail that stays with me. Not the hospital, not the call to Shyra.The coffee still warm on the counter like it was waiting for him to come back and finish it. I took the dietary aide position at Piedmont Medical three weeks after we buried him. It was the job that was hiring.It paid enough to cover the monthly installment on the house. The payment Odell had been making for four years toward a property that was almost ours. I kept making it because I didn’t know what else to do with the paperwork sitting in his desk drawer.I told myself I’d deal with it when I had the strength. Four months later, I still didn’t have the strength, so I just kept paying. That’s what survival looks like from the inside.