Dark Suit and a Weary Smile
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A Dark Suit and a Weary Smile
There’s a weight to the world when you walk into a room dressed in a dark suit. It’s not just the heaviness of the fabric or the tightness of the collar around your neck—it’s the weight of expectation, the weight of years that have passed, and the weight of all the little things that have gone unsaid.
For Daniel, the dark suit had become a uniform of sorts. He wore it to weddings, to funerals, to meetings with colleagues, to occasions when he was expected to be someone else, someone more polished, more composed. The suit was his armor, though it had never really shielded him from anything. It just weighed on him. He never liked it. But it was easier than thinking about why he didn’t.
That particular morning, as he stood in front of the mirror, straightening the sleeves of his jacket, he wasn’t preparing for a meeting or a celebration. There were no formalities here. No speeches. No announcements. The only thing he was preparing for was to say goodbye.
He had known this moment was coming, though perhaps not in this way. His mother had been in and out of the hospital for months now—heart problems, kidney failure, the slow, inevitable decline. It was always the same conversation with the doctors: “We’re doing all we can.” “We’ll keep her comfortable.” But those words, meant to reassure, were the ones that planted the seed of dread.
Today, the seed had finally bloomed. She had passed in the night.
Daniel sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, the suit feeling suffocating on his body. He rubbed his face with both hands, as though trying to rub away the truth. But it wasn’t going anywhere. His mother was gone. He had never been prepared for it, not really.
He had thought about this day for years, in passing, in quiet moments when he would wonder how he would cope, what he would feel when the inevitable happened. But now that it had come, it wasn’t anything like he had imagined. There was no sorrowful clarity. No sense of finality. Just an overwhelming weariness that crept into his bones.
He tried to remember the last time he had smiled at her, truly smiled. It had been weeks, maybe months ago. The visits had become routine. He would drive to the hospital after work, sit by her bed, make small talk—talk about the weather, about how the neighbors were doing, about things that didn’t matter. He was there, but only in body, never fully in mind. His heart was often somewhere else: at work, at the bar with friends, in the distant corners of his thoughts. He had been avoiding the sadness. Avoiding the grief. Maybe he had been avoiding her too.
But now she was gone.
The suit felt too tight, too confining, and for a moment he considered changing into something more comfortable. Something less formal. Maybe a sweater, something soft. But he knew, deep down, that the suit was what was expected of him. It was a suit for an occasion like this: a funeral. A dark suit to match the somber occasion, the grief, the finality of it all. It wasn’t for him. It wasn’t for her either. It was for the world around him. For the people who would come to pay their respects, the ones who would expect him to be a certain way. Stoic. Calm. Collected.
The dark suit was his shield.
His phone buzzed, and he glanced down to see a text message from his sister, Claire.
“The funeral home just called. We need to decide on the time.”
Daniel took a deep breath and typed back, trying to sound more composed than he felt.
“Let’s do it for 2. I’ll make the arrangements.”
He stared at the screen for a moment longer, his finger hovering over the keys. “I’ll make the arrangements.” It was a hollow statement. He didn’t know how to make arrangements like this. He had never planned a funeral. He had never planned for his mother’s death. He had never planned for the absence that would suddenly carve out space where she used to be.
Claire would be there, of course, along with the rest of the family, but it was Daniel who had to make the calls, who had to sign the papers, who had to speak to the priest, who had to keep everything moving. He had been the one to hold it all together for years—at least, that’s what everyone thought. He had convinced himself of it too, until now. Now that it was real, he was tired.
He rose from the bed and grabbed his keys. The house was empty, save for the faint sound of the refrigerator humming in the kitchen, the old floors creaking beneath his shoes. There was no one to call out to him, no one to complain about the noise or to ask him to turn down the music. The silence was suffocating, but somehow, it was also a relief. For the first time in months, there was no one in the house to take care of. No one to worry about.
As he drove to the funeral home, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was playing a part. The black suit, the somber expression, the steady hands on the wheel—he was acting like the person he was supposed to be, not the person he truly felt. The grief hadn’t come yet, or maybe it had, but it felt far away, like it was happening to someone else. He had been preparing for this moment for so long, and now that it had arrived, it felt strangely distant.
He arrived at the funeral home and walked through the doors. The smell of flowers and incense filled the air, and he was greeted by a woman behind the desk. She smiled at him, sympathetically, as though this was just another day, another family, another loss.
“We’re ready for you,” she said, her voice soft and practiced.
Daniel nodded, though he didn’t feel ready. He had never felt less ready in his life. But he followed her, his shoes clicking on the polished floors, the dark suit weighing him down with every step.
Inside the room, there was a casket, surrounded by flowers and candles. The room was bright, almost too bright for such a somber occasion. The people were beginning to arrive, and Daniel was supposed to greet them. He was supposed to stand there and look like everything was okay.
But as he took his place near the casket, he felt an odd sensation wash over him—a strange mixture of sorrow and relief. He wanted to cry, but he couldn’t. He wanted to scream, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, he stood there, with a weary smile, nodding politely at friends and family who offered their condolences.
Inside, he was screaming. Inside, the grief was bubbling up, waiting for the moment when he could finally let go. But for now, he was just a man in a dark suit, wearing a smile that didn’t belong to him, trying to carry a weight he didn’t know how to bear.
And so he stood, waiting for the tears that wouldn’t come, and for the sorrow that hadn’t yet reached him.