My husband was never big on dates. Birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine’s Day—none of them stuck in his mind. Every year, I would set the table, light candles, and cook something special, hoping maybe this time he’d remember. And every year, he’d look up halfway through dessert with that horrified expression and say, “Oh no. Was that today?”
I used to get so annoyed. Sometimes I snapped at him. Sometimes I’d roll my eyes dramatically. Once, in a moment I’m not proud of, I even compared him to my friend’s husband—the one who bought surprise gifts, booked weekend trips, and never forgot a single date. “Why can’t you be more like him?” I had asked, and the hurt that flickered across my husband’s face haunted me long after.
Then he passed.
Suddenly, remembering dates didn’t matter anymore. The world dimmed. The calendar felt like a meaningless grid of numbers. That first year without him, our anniversary came and went in complete silence. I didn’t cook a special dinner. I didn’t light candles. I didn’t even notice the day at all.
It was a few weeks later, on my birthday, when everything changed.
I was home, curled up on the couch, trying to convince myself that birthdays meant nothing at my age, when a firm knock sounded at the door. I opened it to find a man in a suit—my husband’s lawyer—standing beside a young flower delivery guy.
“Mrs. Carter?” the lawyer asked gently. “There’s something your husband arranged.”
The delivery guy stepped forward and handed me a bouquet. Simple daisies and wildflowers. The kind I used to gather from the backyard and put in a jar on the kitchen table. My breath caught.