“I never got to meet you, so forgive me for talking to a ceiling,” my first wife said in the recording. Her voice trembled, but then she laughed softly. She asked the woman standing beside my son to take her place for one song—not to replace her, but to finish what she had started.

My son took his bride’s hand, and a melody I had not heard in nine years filled the ballroom. My first wife used to hum that song over the kitchen sink after receiving her diagnosis. I had never told our boy. As they danced, his forehead rested against hers, and his face finally relaxed. Then her voice returned: “Tell my boy his mother is not afraid, and that she is proud of the shirt.” Click continue reading below

He had ironed it himself that morning. I knew because years earlier, he had asked me how she folded the cuffs.