That evening, I went home.
My daughter was sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me.
“Is Grandpa coming back?”
I sat beside her.
“No, sweetheart.”
Her face crumpled.
I pulled her into my arms and held her until the crying passed.
Then I opened the kitchen drawer.
The old metal star cutter was lying near the back.
Scratched.
Darkened.
Worn from decades of Sunday mornings.
I mixed flour, eggs, milk, cinnamon, and chopped apples.
My daughter watched as I poured the batter into the little star-shaped cutter.
“Why did Grandpa always make them this shape, Mom?”
I looked at the two photographs resting beside the stove.
Then I smiled through my tears.
“Because someone taught him that love can remember one person and still make room for another.”
We ate together at the kitchen table.
My daughter took one bite.
Then she smiled.
For a brief second, her laughter filled the room.
It was the same kind of laughter that had once frightened Frank.
The same laughter that had eventually taught him to stay.
When we finished, I washed the dishes and placed the star cutter beside the stove.
It would be there next Sunday.
And every Sunday after that.
Not because the grief had disappeared.
It hadn’t.
Not because losing Frank hurt any less.
It didn’t.
But because I finally understood something he had spent his entire life trying to teach me without ever saying it directly:
Love doesn’t erase the people we’ve lost.
It carries them with us.
And sometimes, the greatest proof that someone we lost is still part of our lives isn’t an old photograph or a forgotten story.
Sometimes, it’s a tiny metal star sitting in a kitchen drawer.
Waiting for Sunday morning.
