When my husband passed away in a fire, I believed nothing could ever hurt more. He had been a firefighter, and on his final night, he saved a young girl before losing his own life. Since then, it was just my son Andrew and me, learning how to move forward without him. Andrew, only eight years old, carried his grief quietly, holding on to one special thing—a pair of sneakers his father had given him shortly before everything changed. He wore them every day, as if they were a piece of his dad he couldn’t let go of. Even when they fell apart, he refused to replace them. We taped them together as best we could, trying to make them last just a little longer.
