Both my mother and my mother-in-law wanted me to be excited about, and involved in, their projects to memorialize Matt’s life, an excitement I did not have in me at that time. Every time they went on about this tree or that garden, and how I needed to be involved, or choose, or attend, I had to fight back the words: “I don’t want a stupid tree. I want him back!” “I don’t care what kind of flowers you put there; it’s your garden, not his.” And, oh, the number of times I had to bite my tongue and use my grown-up words when some distant family member insisted on a hyperreligious memorial that
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