I watched my mother carefully slide an unidentified gift inside the casket at my grandmother’s burial. When I took it later out of interest, I never imagined it would expose terrible truths that would follow me always.

Though for me it feels like missing stairs in the dark, some say loss comes in waves. Not only family; my grandma Catherine was my universe, my buddy. She enveloped me in hugs that felt like returning home and made me feel like the most valuable thing on Earth. Last week, standing next to her tomb, I felt free, like learning to breathe with just half a lung. Grandma’s quiet face was softly shadowed by the dim lighting of the funeral home. Someone had put her preferred pearl necklace around her neck, and her silver hair was set just how she always liked it.

As memories poured back, my fingertips felt the smooth coffin wood. We had been sitting in her kitchen drinking tea and laughing only last month as she showed me her secret sugar cookie recipe.

“Emerald, honey, you know she is now looking over you.” Our next-door neighbor Mrs. Anderson laid a wrinkled hand on my shoulder. Red-rimmed behind her glasses, were her eyes. “Your grandmother never stopped talking about her priceless grandchild.” I cleaned a stray rip off. “Remember her wonderful apple pie making technique? From the stench, the entire neighborhood would know it was Sunday.

Oh, those pies are great! Pleased as could be, she would send you over slices for us. ‘Emerald assisted with this one,’ she would invariably remark. She uses the cinnamon with just the right touch.

“I tried making one last week,” I said, voice catching. “It changed differently. I took up the phone to ask her what I had done wrong, and then the heart attack happened; the ambulance showed up and—”