It was raining outside; the kind of steady, soaking rain ushered in by autumn in the Midwest, yet there wasn’t the slightest trace of a breeze rattling the brightly colored leaves on the trees, I noticed. Even the sky is crying with us was my numb thought as I gazed out the upstairs window of my ten-year-old son’s bedroom that morning.

I had told myself not to watch, which is why I had taken the kids upstairs with me in the first place. I didn’t want them to see their dad, too still, covered by a sheet, being wheeled out of the main level master bedroom by a stranger.

In the end, though, I couldn’t stop myself. I watched while the man from the funeral home carefully pushed him down the three-tiered sidewalk and gently loaded him into the back of the inconspicuous, dark-colored minivan parked in front of the house. I watched as he got into the driver’s seat and the van began moving, slowly rounding the curve of the quarter-mile long, concrete driveway that separated our home from the rest of the world. I kept watching until I could no longer catch even the slightest glimpse of it between the tulip trees that lined the driveway. Tony, my husband of fifteen years, thirty-seven years young, was leaving the home and property that he loved so much and had worked so hard to provide for us, for the very last time.

After I had wiped my eyes and gathered the strength to turn away from the window, I saw my two children sitting quietly side by side on Collin’s little boy bed, surrounded by his favorite stuffed animals, various baseball team pictures taped to the wooden headboard behind them.

Some of my fondest memories are from those carefree baseball summers when life was so much easier; before all of the hard things hit, one after another. In each of those pictures I saw Tony—big, strong, and healthy, with his huge, signature smile—who had coached those little boys with rare enthusiasm and dedication; and Collin with his sweet cherub face and missing baby teeth, huge brown eyes, and shy expression, standing proudly in front of his dad.

Now, as I pulled my gaze away from the pictures and back to the kids, I saw in Collin’s eyes, and most of all in thirteen-year-old Whitney’s eyes, the questions that we could neither give voice to nor answer. What comes next? What are we supposed to do now?Unsure of this and infinitely more, we quietly left the room and walked single file back down the gray carpeted staircase into the kitchen.

Two hours earlier, I had climbed on top of the queen-sized bed we had shared for all of those years and held tightly to his hand. I had opened the Christian radio app on my smartphone, and “What a Beautiful Name It Is” by Hillsong had played quietly through the phone speakers, softening the sound of his chest rattling with every labored breath. It was the only thing I could think to do in that moment that might offer him some extra measure of comfort.

My mom, who had been staying with us for weeks now, sat helplessly on the floor nearby, giving us space, both of us knowing that we could do nothing more. Nothing we could have done for him would have been enough. The cancer had been ruthless, spreading like wildfire through his body, leaving him just a shell of the man he had been only a few short months before.

When he exhaled for the last time, I continued to hold his hand while I sobbed in anguish. After a few minutes passed, I composed myself, said my last goodbyes, and finally sighed in relief that his suffering was over.

What happened next was even more difficult. I woke our sleeping children, first Whitney and then Collin, and told them their daddy had gone to Heaven, watching with a shattered heart as the tears sprang into their eyes, and they climbed out of their warm beds to go see him for the last time.

 That night I laid in the dark, too-quiet house, sandwiched between the kids under the freshly laundered sheets with sweet Beau Kitty in his usual place at the foot of the bed. Unable to sleep, memories came rushing in, flooding my heart and soul. Each one had the blurred edges and dreamlike quality that grief settles over everything as if nothing that had transpired had really happened to me, but rather like I had watched it all unfold from afar.