Tommy greeted me breathlessly at the door, screaming “Mama!” and throwing himself in my arms. I was late, again. Teaching was supposed to be a job where you got home early, but that first fall without Shawn there seemed to be too many students who needed my help and too many papers to grade. I was getting home when the sun was low in the sky almost every day. “I’m sorry I’m late,” I said as I stepped in the door. Inside were a half-dozen kids and I could hear more upstairs.  I went and greeted my dad, who was reading in the recliner, seemingly oblivious to the noise around…

We never really talked about the division of labor in the house when my dad arrived, as I basically needed him to do everything Shawn and I had once done together: packing lunches and folding laundry and walking kids to neighborhood birthday parties. When Shawn was in the hospital, and then immediately after he died, my dad never asked much about what he needed to do. He mostly just figured it out. My youngest son, Tommy, was in preschool at our church, a short walk from our house. I couldn’t face the sympathetic faces I knew I’d encounter at the school, so I let my dad take over the task…

We never really talked about how long my dad was going to stay, but weeks turned into months, and there he continued to be. After dinner in the evenings, we cleaned up and then we all went upstairs to get ready for bed. It had always been my routine with the kids and my dad joined me without comment immediately after Shawn died and we were home together. Most nights, my dad bathed Tommy and I supervised showers with the older kids. “Only three toys,” I heard him say one night. I came in to find Tommy deciding which bath toys he was going to bring in the tub, picking…