The Funeral No One Attended
Only I came to my husband’s funeral. Not our son, not our daughter, not a single grandchild. Just me, May Holloway, standing by his coffin while the cold October wind whipped through the chapel courtyard, as if even the weather couldn’t bear to stay.
The funeral director, a young man named Mr. Evans, looked deeply uncomfortable. His eyes flicked between the empty seats in the small chapel and my face.
He cleared his throat once, then again, adjusting his tie. “Would you like us to wait a few more minutes, Mrs. Holloway?” he asked, his voice strained with pity.
“No,” I said, my voice steady, betraying none of the immense ache inside me. “Start. George would have hated a delay.”
He was punctual, even in his last days, taking pills by the clock, watching the evening news at six sharp, folding his slippers side by side before bed.
A man of habit, a man of quiet dignity. And now, a man laid to rest alone. I sat in the front row, all five chairs around me starkly empty.
The pastor, a kindly but detached man, recited scripture without conviction, his words lost in the cavernous silence. The flowers were too bright, the casket too polished, a glossy mahogany mockery of George’s humble spirit. I couldn’t stop thinking how George would have chuckled at the fuss.
And then, he would have glanced around, a frown slowly deepening on his face, asking, “Where the hell are the kids?”
Where were they? A message had come that morning. Our son, Peter, a single line of text.
Sorry, Mom. Something came up. Can’t make it.
No explanation. No follow-up call. I imagined him in his office, or more likely, on a golf course with clients, pretending not to feel the weight of the day.
Our daughter, Celia, hadn’t messaged at all. She’d left a voicemail two days earlier, her voice as breezy as a spring wind. “Mom, I really can’t cancel my nail appointment, and you know how anxious I get with reschedules.
Tell Dad I’ll visit him next week.”
Next week? As if dead men wait. After the brief service, I walked alone behind the pallbearers.
I didn’t cry. Not because I wasn’t grieving—I had been grieving for George for months, watching him fade, holding his hand as he slipped away. But there’s a kind of sorrow so deep it sits motionless inside you, heavy as an anchor.
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