Every month, on the 15th, I visited my husband’s grave. It had been a year since Tom passed, and the pain still felt fresh. But something strange had started happening.
Each time I arrived, a fresh bouquet of flowers was already there.
White lilies in spring. Sunflowers in summer. Always perfectly arranged, as if placed with care.
At first, I assumed it was one of Tom’s old coworkers or friends. But when I asked around, no one claimed responsibility.
The cemetery groundskeeper noticed my curiosity. “A man comes every Friday,” he told me. “Quiet fellow. Stays a while.”
A man?
Tom had plenty of friends, but none who visited that often. I had to know who it was.
One day, the groundskeeper snapped a photo of the mystery visitor. When I saw it, my heart stopped.
It was Matt. My son-in-law.
That evening, I confronted him at dinner.
“Why?” I asked.
Matt’s hands shook as he confessed. “The night Tom died… he was coming to get me.”
My stomach dropped.
Tom had gotten a call late that night—Matt, drunk and stranded, too ashamed to tell anyone he’d lost his job. Tom left without a word, just as he always did when someone needed help.
He never made it home.
Matt had carried the guilt in silence for a year, visiting the grave every week, leaving the same flowers Tom used to buy me.
“I thought you’d hate me,” he whispered.
But all I felt was grief—and the strange comfort of knowing Tom had been exactly the man I loved until the very end.
Now, when we visit the grave together, we bring flowers. And for the first time, the weight feels a little lighter.
