"How can I leave my beloved in the grave?"
"How can I leave my beloved in the grave?""How can I leave my beloved in the grave?" 
### *How Can I Leave My Beloved in the Grave?*
The funeral was over, but Daniel remained.
Mourners had long since faded into the afternoon sun, leaving behind only wilting flowers and half-spoken condolences clinging to the air like fog. He stood there, stiff in his suit, watching the earth settle over Lena’s casket. Each mound of soil had landed like a stone in his chest. He had not cried during the service. He didn’t believe in crying where others could see.
But now, with the trees whispering in the summer wind and no one left to pretend for, the tears came. Silent and clean.
“How can I leave you here?” he whispered, kneeling and placing his hand on the fresh earth. “It’s just dirt and cold and silence. You were light and music and warmth. This isn't right.”
The wind answered with a hush, rustling the pages of the letter he had written and placed inside her casket. It was a letter he never wanted to write—full of unspoken apologies, remembered laughter, and the kind of aching love that survives even death.
Every part of Daniel rebelled against turning his back on that grave. It felt like betrayal. Like leaving her alone.
But Lena’s voice, that echo lodged deep in his soul, gently spoke in his mind.
*"You don’t leave me here, love. You carry me with you."*
He sat there for hours, remembering the way her eyes crinkled when she laughed, the songs she sang when she thought no one was listening, the small, quiet ways she made the world better. Those things weren’t buried. Not really.
As dusk settled over the cemetery, Daniel rose, legs trembling, heart cracked but not broken.
He kissed his fingertips and pressed them to the headstone. “I’ll never leave you,” he said softly. “But I promise… I’ll keep living for us both.”
And with that, he turned and walked away—not from Lena, but toward the life she would have wanted him to live.
Would you like this expanded into a longer piece, or adapted into a different format like a screenplay or poem?
Comments
Post a Comment