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The weight of a child’s casket is a burden no mother is designed to carry. It is a physical agony that defies the boundaries of the chest, seeping into the marrow of one’s bones and clouding the very air you breathe. As I stood in the hallowed silence of the church, staring at the white wood adorned with lilies and pale roses, I felt as though I were made of glass, ready to shatter at the slightest vibration. My daughter, Emily, was gone at twenty-nine. She was a woman of soft edges and a loud heart, a person who lived to serve others, and a woman who had spent her final years perfecting the art of the brave, brittle smile.
