My family skipped my 3-year-old’s funeral to celebrate my sister’s engagement. Mom texted: “He was very young! Get over it!
We need his trust fund for your sister’s wedding in Greece!”
I just replied, “Whatever makes you happy,” stopped all their financial support, and cut all ties with them…
He was very young. Get over it. We need his trust fund for your sister’s wedding in Greece.
I stared at my phone screen, my mother’s text message burning into my retinas. My hands trembled as I sat in the funeral home’s parking lot, still wearing the black dress I’d put on that morning. My three-year-old son’s funeral had ended an hour ago.
The small casket, the few flowers I could afford, the empty chairs where my family should have been sitting. All of it replayed in my mind like a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. My name is Brienne and I’m 31 years old.
I work as a lawyer at a midsized firm in Portland, Oregon, handling corporate litigation. For the past three years, I’d been a single mother to my beautiful boy, Ethan. His father left before he was born, and I’d raised my son alone while building my career from the ground up.
Every late night studying case files. Every early morning before daycare drop-off. Every sacrifice I made.
It was all for him. Three weeks ago, Ethan got sick. What started as a fever turned into something worse.
The doctors did everything they could, but his little body just couldn’t fight it anymore. I held his hand as he took his last breath, whispering that Mommy loved him, that everything would be okay. But nothing was okay.
Nothing would ever be okay again. My family knew about the funeral. I’d sent them the details two weeks ago.
My parents lived just 40 minutes away in Vancouver. And my younger sister Jessica was staying with them while planning her wedding. I’d asked—no, begged them to come.
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