Inside that leaning shed, surrounded by damp wood and dust, I felt the world tilt. Lily’s clothes were everywhere, folded into a makeshift nest: her purple scarf, the blue hoodie she’d lived in one winter, the white cardigan I’d forgotten she’d outgrown. Curled in the center was a calico cat, guarding three impossibly small kittens. Baxter laid the yellow sweater down gently, as if he knew exactly what it meant. Watching the kittens burrow into its softness, something in my chest cracked—but this time, it wasn’t from breaking.

I remembered Lily begging to “make a cozy hotel for stray kitties” the previous fall, dragging old clothes to the shed with fierce determination. I’d dismissed it as another phase. Now, I saw it for what it was: her last unfinished kindness. In that fragile, flickering moment, grief loosened its grip just enough for something else to enter—continuing her love, instead of only mourning her absence.