my car, family jewelry, and nearly everything else I owned.
Years earlier, I’d made myself a promise.
My younger brother died when I was nine. I only understood that the doctors hadn’t been able to save him.
Afterward, Mom became emotionally absent. She still fed and clothed me, but part of her seemed to die with him.
I promised my own child would never disappear beneath my grief.
Then I began losing Ethan.
And grief seemed determined to test that promise.
One evening, he said, “I want to donate whatever they can use.”
“Stop.”
“Mom..”
“You’re nineteen.”
“I’m aware. The terrible beard is a clue.”
I laughed through my tears.
He smiled. “If I have to go, somebody should get something good out of this disaster.”
Eventually, I agreed.
—NEXT PAGE
After Ethan died, his heart was donated to an eighteen-year-old girl.
At the funeral, a woman approached me.
