“Mom… when is Dad coming back from his work trip with Jesus? Will he be home for New Year?”
“Mom… Dad went with Jesus. When will he come back? He’s been gone so long…”
As the year draws to a close, most families are preparing for reunions, warm dinners, and long-awaited embraces. But inside the quiet home where Erika now lives with her children, reunion has taken on a very different meaning — one that exists only in memory, not in reality.
Outside, Christmas lights glow against the winter evening, bright and cheerful. Inside, the glow only makes the emptiness feel sharper.
Charlie’s favorite chair remains untouched. His jacket still hangs behind the door, faintly holding the scent of the man they lost. His presence lingers in every corner. But he will never walk through that door again.
And the question that hurts the most now comes from three-year-old GiGi — innocent, hopeful, certain that the world still makes sense.
That night, while Erika quietly folded her late husband’s clothes, GiGi hurried toward her, wrapped her tiny arms around her mother’s leg, and looked up with those wide, trusting eyes.
“Mom… when is Dad coming back from his work trip with Jesus? Will he spend New Year with me?”
Erika froze. Her hands shook. Her heart cracked the way it had cracked every day since that terrible night. She forced a soft smile — a mother’s instinctive shield — but nothing could hide the grief welling up inside her.
She knelt, pulled her daughter close, and whispered gently:
“If you miss Daddy… look up at the sky and talk to him. He can hear you.”
GiGi turned toward the window, toward the stars glittering in the December sky, and whispered:
“Daddy… I want to visit you. Can I go see you?”
Her little voice was sweet, innocent — and devastating.
Because how do you explain forever to a child who still believes every goodbye has a return date?
How do you teach a three-year-old that some doors will never open again?
How do you hold your child together when you’re breaking yourself, quietly, piece by piece?
Erika wrapped her arms around her daughter tighter than before, as if holding her close could protect them both from a world that suddenly felt too heavy, too cold.
“One day… we’ll see each other again,” she murmured, though she could barely steady her voice.
But she knew the truth: she didn’t know how she would survive the days until that “one day” comes.
As night settled in, a cold breeze moved through the cracks in the door.
GiGi curled up in her mother’s lap, still murmuring:
“Mom… if Dad misses me… can he see me too?”
Erika swallowed back tears. They fell anyway, landing softly on her daughter’s hair.
“Yes, sweetheart… Daddy sees you. Every day.”
But the questions remained — questions no mother should ever have to answer:
How do you help a child accept a loss even adults struggle to understand?
What justice or comfort could ever fill the space left behind?
Who explains the world to a little girl whose biggest hero is gone?
Outside, early fireworks cracked across the night sky — celebrations of a new year approaching.
Inside, the only sound was the quiet sob of a mother trying to be strong enough for both herself and her child.
A new year will come.
But for Erika and her children, time is measured differently now: not by holidays or seasons, but by the days they face without him… and the love they hold onto in the empty space he left behind.
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