"How hard it was for me to function" after the loss of a loved one -
Maybe if I'd found a therapist, I'd have been "validated" (excused?) for shutting down.
Two sisters, and our father, 2021, 2022, 2023, all in a row.
The cemetery with the granite slabs somehow reminds me of the dinner table.
Four of us down. Three of us left. All those empty places at Mom's epic dining room table (oval, with many "leaves" for expansion, quarter-sawn oak, aka "tiger" oak).

"It's getting crowded here,"

my only remaining sister said as she and Mom and I stood there in the cemetery, looking at those shiny granite slabs -