Waffle House was slow. It was late when we pulled in. We needed hash browns. Stat.
My wife and I walked into the arctic air of the tiny restaurant and slid into the same side of a booth without speaking. Her face was tear-stained and raw. She had a dehydration headache from crying.
There was no music overhead. Which was odd. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a musicless Waffle House.
The waitress approached. She could tell something was wrong by the way my wife was dabbing her eyes.
“You okay, hon?” the waitress asked, handing us menus.
My wife nodded.
We ordered drinks, then my wife leaned onto my shoulder and tried to pull herself together, albeit unsuccessfully.
I held her and said, “Sssshhh” because this is what my mother used to say whenever I cried over a skinned knee or a busted lip. Mama wasn’t actually shushing me, I suppose it’s just what you say when a loved one sobs into your shirt.
We came to this Waffle House almost immediately after the undertaker
removed the body of my mother-in-law from her house.
It was surreal. Two men from the funeral home arrived with a stainless-steel gurney. They wore dark suits and did their jobs flawlessly. We removed my mother-in-law’s wedding ring. We fixed her night shirt. They transferred the decedent with dignity, then parked the gurney in the hallway for final farewells.
The placid remains of my wife’s mother were covered in an old quilt. It looked like one of those patchwork quilts your great-great-granny sewed back in eighteen-hundred-and-whenever. Weird what you notice during important moments.
Saying goodbye was tough. Worse than I expected. I don’t care how strong you are, watching a loved one leave home on a mortuary stretcher will break you. Until that moment, it hasn’t hit you yet. Until you see them go, it’s not real.
The men in suits rolled the…