She watches her children play in their yard from the kitchen window. A boy of 15 and a girl of 11. She is smiling as she dries the dishes, chuckling as she remembers how the girl begged the boy to play. She puts down the plate and then the silence of the home creeps back in. It hits her like a machine gun. A shaky hand reaches up to hold the dog tags around her neck.

It's their anniversary. 

The metal feels colder than usual. She grips them tight. She's finding it harder to breathe as the bullet of pain inflicts her once more.

It's been a year since he died, but she knows that the pain will never get easier. It's not supposed to get easier.

She wants to explode. Trading sobs for a war siren. Wanting her hands to dig through the rubble in the place where they claimed he died. To be able to see his baby blue eyes. To stroke the soot of fire from his cheeks. To hear the laugh he traded for a war cry. 

She wanted to collapse like the cathedrals did after the air raid. But she refrained after hearing her son's laugh.

A laugh that was a direct copy of his father's.

That is when she knew. He was never gone.

He was in the eyes of their children. He was in their laugh. He was in her smile. He was in their bed. He was the late family movie nights under the stars and the hot summer days. He was the reminiscence of her favorite memories. Her favorite tune on the radio. Her favorite visitor. He was everything.

And because he was everything, he will never be gone.

She looked up at her laughing children once more. The smallest smile and watery eyes.

"You are still here."