It started when Phil called a few weeks back, so excited she could barely contain it. “I need your help — Ryan and I are throwing a tiny engagement party. It’s a surprise, don’t tell a soul!” she whispered. Naturally, I agreed. I needed the distraction. Since losing Edward a year ago, I had been drowning. “Nothing big, just pretty. You’re amazing at decoration — please?” Phil had begged.
That’s how I became the party planner: pink and gold balloons, fairy lights, silk flowers—all those festive touches. Every time I tried to get more information, Sophie just giggled nervously and insisted, “don’t jinx it”. I thought she was just nervous about the engagement. I didn’t realize she was nervous about me.
The prep day was a whirlwind. I darted between shops like I was on a mission, then spent hours at the venue decking it out until it looked absolutely magical. Then the day arrived. I pushed open the hall doors with a huge smile, ready to see Sophie’s happiness… and I suddenly froze.
There was no engagement ring. There was no groom-to-be.
The room was filled with my friends, my family, and people I hadn’t seen in months. In the center of the pink and gold balloons I had hung, there wasn’t a “Congratulations” banner. There was a large easel holding a framed photo of Edward.
Sophie stepped forward, her eyes teary. “We know you’ve been trying to be strong,” she said softly. “But we also know that for you, grief is a kind of disease for which no cure can be found“.
I felt my knees give way. They hadn’t tricked me to be cruel; they had tricked me because they knew I wouldn’t have come otherwise. I had been isolating myself, convinced that social media isn’t just a highlight reel, but a place to hide my pain, forgetting that my friends were a modern-day village looking out for us.
Phil handed me a small, weathered notebook. “We found this in his old office,” she said. “We thought you needed to read it today.”
I opened the book to Edward’s handwriting. He had written about the days he knew were coming, the days when life and its living proves harder than usual, when I would feel his absence all the more. He wrote about how I would find no comfort from his embrace, no soothing from his voice, no ease of my being by the sight of him soft in my eyes.
But then, I turned the page to his final entry.
“My love,” it read, “Close your eyes. In memory and dream I am returned to you, returned home. Do not despair. In the memory of my heart, our forever continues“.
I looked up at my friends, the “village” that had conspired to break my walls down. For the first time in a year, the silence didn’t feel empty. It felt like he was there. The surprise wasn’t a party; it was permission to heal.
