Then I got angry.
Who was he?
How did he know Emily?
Why did this man show up for her every week, when some people in her family barely showed up?
Emily had died fourteen months earlier of breast cancer.
She was only forty-three.
We had been married twenty years.
Two kids.
A quiet home. She was a pediatric nurse.
She volunteered at church.
She drove a silver minivan and packed snacks for every school event.
Her idea of breaking the rules was ordering dessert before dinner.
But this biker felt sorry for her as if she had lost someone irreplaceable.
Sometimes, from my car, I could see her shoulders shaking.
Sometimes, before she left, she would place a hard hand on her gravestone and hold it there for several seconds.
As if saying goodbye to me again.
By the third month, I couldn’t take it anymore. That Saturday, I got out of my car and walked toward him.
He heard my footsteps, but he didn’t turn around.
His hand remained pressed against Emily’s name.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice clearer than I intended. “I’m Emily’s husband. I think it’s time you told me who you are.”
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then he stood up slowly, turned to look at me, and looked like a man who had been waiting six months for this question.
Finally, he said,
“Your wife was…”
Men's clothing
Same day.
Same time.
Every Saturday at 2 p.m., he would ride his Harley to the cemetery, parking near the old oak tree and walking straight to Emily's headstone.
Then he would sit by her grave for an hour.
He never brought flowers. I
never left a note.
I never spoke loudly enough for her to hear.
He would just sit cross-legged on the grass, his head bowed, as if he were carrying a grief too heavy to bear.
The first time I saw him, I thought I had made a mistake.
It was a big cemetery. Graves can be easily confused.
But then he came back the next Saturday.
And the Saturday after that. And the Saturday after that.
Week after week, this stranger mourned my wife as if she belonged to him too.
At first, I was confused.
Then I got angry.
Who was he?
How did he know Emily?
Why did this man show up for her every week, when some people in her family barely showed up?
Emily had died fourteen months earlier of breast cancer.
She was only forty-three.
We had been married twenty years.
Two kids.
A quiet home. She was a pediatric nurse.
She volunteered at her church.
She drove a silver minivan and packed snacks for every school event.
Her idea of breaking the rules was ordering dessert before dinner.
But this biker felt sorry for her as if she had lost someone irreplaceable.
Sometimes, from my car, I could see her shoulders shaking.
Sometimes, before she left, she would place a hard hand on her gravestone and hold it there for several seconds.
It was like he was saying goodbye to me again.
By the third month, I couldn’t take it anymore. That Saturday, I got out of my car and walked toward him.
He heard my footsteps, but he didn’t turn around.
His hand remained pressed against Emily’s name.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice clearer than I intended. “I’m Emily’s husband. I think it’s time you told me who you are.”
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then he stood up slowly, turned to look at me, and looked like a man who had been waiting six months for this question.
Finally, he said,
“Your wife was…”