A Mother’s Grief: A Heartbreaking Story of Loss and Love

“Not Today”

The sky cracked open before we left the house. I should have known better. The clouds weren’t just gray—they were bruised and brooding, dark as guilt, churning above the rooftops like grief. Everything in me screamed to stay home. But Evie begged. Just the park, she said, or what her little voice could manage of the word. And I couldn’t say no. Not today. Not on the day that marked a year since Hattie died.

I whispered a prayer at the door, clutching the old red umbrella. “Are you there, God? It’s me. Help me break her heart today. Or stop me. Bring back the sun. Please.” But the sky answered with a downpour. The rain was cold and sharp, soaking through our coats almost instantly, but Evie didn’t seem to mind. She never did. Her hand nestled inside mine, warm and small, like Hattie’s once had.

We reached the park. Most of the kids had already scattered, the wind chasing them like ghosts between the swings and the trees. I tried to open the umbrella, but the wind snapped it backward, ripping the fabric and sending it tumbling across the gravel. It landed near the monkey bars, twisted and useless. Evie stared at it for a moment, then waddled over and pointed with the solemnity only a toddler could manage. “Boken,” she said. Broken.

She wasn’t wrong. It looked like it had fallen from the sky itself. The ribs were cracked, the shaft bent, the canopy blood-red and sagging in the rain. I wondered, for a fleeting second, if this was some kind of metaphor too obvious to ignore. Everything was broken.

Then Evie looked up at the rain, blinking through the drops, and smiled. “Dibble dop,” she said. That was her word for rain. Not “rain,” just the sound of it. That’s how she names most things—by the way they sound. Birds are “tweet tweet.” Dogs are “woof.” The sky is “boom.” But she always called Hattie by name.

“Mama,” she asked softly, “Hattie?”

My heart seized. How do you explain death to a child who still thinks puddles are magic portals? How do you tell her that her best friend isn’t just missing, or at school, or asleep? That she’s never coming back?

“They share everything,” Hattie’s mom once told me. “Germs, giggles, gummy bears. Even tantrums.” It was true. They’d been inseparable. Two little souls orbiting each other, tugging the rest of us into their gravity. Evie still asks about her, still talks to her sometimes, like Hattie is just offscreen, waiting to come back into frame.

“Hattie,” I started, but the words dissolved in my throat. “Not today. It’s raining.”

Evie looked up again, as if needing proof, and let the rain gather on her cheeks. “Dibble dop,” she said again, nodding.

We left the park and walked past the iron gate, which creaked behind us like it remembered. She asked again, “Mama, play Hattie?” I shook my head. “No, baby. No.”

The old red-bricked chapel came into view, its steeple cutting the sky like a knife. The bells chimed for noon, hollow and cold. The church used to be a place of warmth for me. A lighthouse. Now it felt more like a tomb. I hadn’t stepped inside since the funeral. Since the casket no bigger than a toy box rolled past the altar. Since I held Hattie’s mother while she screamed into my hair.

We passed the pool next, fenced off and still. Evie tugged on my arm and pointed. “Mama, pool?” My jaw tightened. “No,” I said quickly, too quickly. “No, sweetheart.”

She didn’t understand the weight that place carried. That’s where Hattie had drowned. A faulty drain. A summer day. A few minutes of distraction. That was all it took. Hattie had always been so fast, so fearless. One moment she was splashing with Evie, the next… I can still see her mother kneeling beside the gurney, whispering Hattie’s name over and over, like if she just said it enough, she’d wake up. I can still feel the hospital floor beneath my knees. Cold. Too real. I prayed that night harder than I ever had. That God would give her back. That He would breathe again into her small lungs. I prayed until dawn. Nothing happened.

Now I clutched Evie’s hand like a life preserver, like I could anchor her to the world with my grip alone. A black cat darted across the sidewalk, slick and fast. Evie gasped. “Meeeeeow,” she whispered, enchanted. She turned to me, eyes wide. “Fast!” I nodded, unable to find my voice. Hattie had loved cats too. The last time I saw her laugh, she was chasing one through a pile of autumn leaves, Evie stumbling behind her, both of them squealing.

We walked on, my throat tight. Past neat houses with flower beds and tired porch swings. Past the life that used to feel normal. Then Evie stopped and pointed at a planter box filled with white lilies, bowed under the weight of the rain. “Hattie?” she asked again.

I looked away. I couldn’t tell her about the hand they found at the bottom of the pool, caught in the drain. I couldn’t describe the way Hattie’s body looked, pale and swollen, hooked up to machines. I couldn’t tell her how I’d begged God for something—anything—and heard only silence in return. Evie stared up at me with eyes too knowing for someone so small.

“Play with Hattie?” she asked once more.

“No,” I said, barely managing the word. “Not today.”

We reached our front steps, drenched. She tried to splash in a puddle but stopped when she saw I wasn’t smiling. She waited for me to go inside. Waited for something. A word. A truth. I stood there, looking at her—really looking. Her cheeks pink from the cold, hair matted with rain, blue eyes bright and expectant. She still believed in the world. Still believed her best friend might knock on the door. That broken umbrellas could be fixed. That prayers could be answered.

I opened my mouth to tell her.

The words wouldn’t come.

Tomorrow, I thought. I’ll tell her tomorrow. I’ll say the hard thing. I’ll let her grieve. But not today. Today, she still sees Hattie in the lilies and the clouds. Today, she still names rain by sound. Today, she doesn’t cry so hard she forgets how to breathe.

She tilted her face to the sky, arms open, catching the rain on her tongue. “Dibble dop,” she said softly.

I nodded. “Dibble dop,” I echoed.

And she smiled.

The sun didn’t come back. But she did.

For now, that was enough.