Planning Oliver’s funeral over the next few days is a surreal experience. It’s as if a fog surrounds Abigail, allowing her to only see a few inches ahead. She completes the necessary tasks one at a time, all the while her body and mind are lost in the gray, unpredictable haze. Minutes alone are few and far between. She’s surrounded by the Stauntons, visitors from the neighborhood, and Oliver’s friends from the mine. Cards and plants pour in, so much so she can’t tell you what came from whom. When Abigail scrambles for a time in solitude, be it time in the shower or escaping her guests to hide out in her room for a moment alone, she finds herself feeling the finality in death on behalf of more than just Oliver.
She’s consumed with grief, rocked to her very core. Faces swirl in her mind, an
