Thanksgiving lost all meaning the year Marla died. She was only 49, and cancer stole her piece by piece until she became more shadow than wife. I spent her last three months in a recliner beside her hospice bed, listening to breaths grow thinner each night. After she passed, I forgot what it felt like to breathe without fear.
For a long time, my world revolved around Sarah, our only child—my reason to get out of bed. Holidays, birthdays, traditions—they all faded while I quietly sank under words I never learned to say out loud.
