They Held My Funeral While I Was Still Breathing. Then My Seven-Year-Old Nephew Looked Into the Coffin and Said, “Mommy, Aunt Madelyn Is Looking at Me”

“No, she isn’t,” Wesley said.

“She looked at me.”

The praying had stopped.

I heard my mother’s footsteps come toward the coffin, slow and unsteady.

“Madelyn?” she whispered.

I gathered every scrap of strength I had left in my failing body, and I forced out a sound — not a word, I couldn’t manage a word, just a low, strained groan from the bottom of my chest.

I heard my mother’s hand fly to her mouth.