At my father’s funeral, I expect to say goodbye. Instead, a mysterious woman in a wedding dress steps forward and reveals a love story frozen in time. By the time we got to the church, I couldn’t cry anymore.
I’d spent a week doing just that, crying in the shower, crying over coffee, and crying into my mother’s shoulder. But at the funeral, standing in the hush of polished wood and lilies, I just… floated. My name is Kate.
Daniel was my father and on the day we laid him to rest, something extraordinary happened. At first, everything was the way it was supposed to be. The organ played gently.
The priest murmured something kind. My mother, Catherine, sat beside me, composed but pale, her hands folded tightly in her lap. We were mid-service, deep in silent prayer, when the doors opened.
And in she came. A woman, older, maybe 70, maybe more, walked slowly down the aisle. She wore a white wedding dress.
Not a costume. Not a veil-and-tulle fairytale. It was sleek.
Modest. Laced sleeves, high collar, and delicate gloves. Her hair was pinned neatly in a bun and her face, though aged, glowed with something between sorry and certainty.
At first, I thought she must be lost. Then I looked at my mother. Her face had drained of all color.
The woman walked straight to my father’s casket. She placed her hand, gloved and trembling, on the dark wood. And then she whispered something.
“You finally got to see me in white, Daniel.”
I gasped quickly, almost choking on the air. Gasps echoed in the room. Whispers.
Then she turned. Her voice shook as she spoke but her words were clear. “No, I’m not crazy.
And yes, I know exactly how I look. But if it’s alright… I’d like to tell you a story.”
No one moved an inch. She stood by the casket, holding a bouquet of lilies and took a deep breath.
“Fifty years ago,” she said softly. “I fell in love with a boy named Daniel at our high school prom. I was 17.
He was 18. He wore a blue tie that clashed with his suit and he danced like he didn’t care what anyone thought.”
A soft laugh slipped through her sadness. “That night, he told me, ‘One day, I’ll see you in a wedding dress, Ellen.
Maybe not tomorrow, but someday…’ And I believed him.”
She paused. “We were young. Full of dreams.
But two weeks later, he was drafted. Vietnam. He kissed me goodbye under a streetlamp, he said he’d write every week.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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