When my wife died, my 8-year-old son, Noah, stopped talking to almost everyone.
For six months, it was just the two of us.
I cooked his favorite meals. I took him to school. I tried everything I could to make him smile again.
But every night, something strange happened.
Noah would set three plates at the dinner table.
One for himself.
One for me.
And one for someone else.
At first,kh I thought he was still grieving his mother.
“Buddy, why do you keep setting an extra plate?” I asked him one evening.
He looked at the empty chair beside him.
“Because she’s coming home tonight.”
My heart stopped.
“Who, Noah?”
He smiled.
“Mommy.”
I didn’t know what to say. I gently explained that Mommy wasn’t coming back, and he quietly carried the extra plate to the kitchen.
But the next evening, the plate was there again.
And the next.
