It grounds me to feed my children. They eat, and I take root.

"I'll start a new sourdough starter!" I'd sworn.

"I'll take some back to school with me," Fi had replied.

Then he told me his plans for the rest of the summer, where he would work, and what he might do on his days off. But even as my beautiful son had been talking, saying his final precious words to me, I was thinking about the next things on my list: electrical fittings, the paint store, and the retched carpet people. 

And then Fi and I had said I love you to each other. 

I love you more.

I love you most. 

And now I've never talked to him again. That had been it. He had said his last words to me, and I hadn't written them down the way I had written down his first words.

—Alexandra Fuller: Fi

Holly Margl is the award-winning author of Witnessing Grief; Inviting Trauma and Loss to Our Coaching Conversations, An Enneagram Perspective, coach, coach mentor, and trainer specializing in grief, trauma, and the Enneagram.