Each year, my son planted sunflowers in memory of his twin sister who passed away—then one morning, we discovered them all cut down, with a white box left behind.

words never reached the place inside him where the guilt lived.

We tried therapy. We tried routines. We tried talking about Lily gently, then openly, then not at all for a while.

But grief has its own language.

And Patrick’s grief spoke in one sentence:

“I let go.”

The Sunflower Tradition

On what would have been Lily’s seventh birthday, Patrick came to me continue reading …