You thought life couldn’t get any more perfect. You had your husband of four years, your home, your dog, and best of all, you had your little girl you and John had adopted a few years back. It truly was perfect, even if you and John did have the occasional argument. Sometimes when things are perfect, you forget how easily they can all go downhill.

It was sudden, so sudden it couldn’t have been prevented. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t John’s fault. That doesn’t mean it feels like neither of you were to blame. You should have caught it, that illness that took your baby away before she could even turn seven. She passed so suddenly how could you have known? You and John put her to bed one night and the next morning she was gone.

It’s been a few days now. A few days of the house being too quiet, of the dog whining in front of your daughter’s bedroom door, of John throwing himself so deeply into work you fear that he’ll leave you too. You can’t blame him of course, you’d throw yourself into work too if someone else would plan the funeral. Instead of working, you’re choosing what your daughter’s last outfit will be, what flowers will be placed on her grave, you had to choose what her headstone would say. You haven’t allowed yourself to break down yet and neither has John.

This is the first time you and John have done more than sit in silence with each other since your daughter’s passing. You still aren’t talking, instead you’re picking up your daughter’s belongings from her school on a Friday afternoon. All the students have left, it’s just you, John, your daughter’s teacher, and the principal. Their condolences would almost seem insincere if not for the way her teacher had clearly needed to reapply her makeup before you arrived.

The holiday that had been approaching sucker punched you both as soon as you received her school work. There were two half finished keychains and pinch pots, only mostly painted with your guys’s favourite colours, along with a card that she’d only gotten a chance to write her name on. Father’s Day. In two days is the day you and John were meant to celebrate fatherhood and here you are holding the last present your little girl ever made for you.