The Q life Grief Journey

Every Saturday at noon, the sirens sound.

For most people around here, they’re simply the weekly tornado siren test.

For me, they mean something entirely different.

They mean Quinten.

Saturday has been family dinner day in our family for years. And around noon, when those sirens sounded, Quinten would arrive.

It became so predictable that the sound of the sirens and the arrival of my son became connected in my mind.

Noon.

The sirens.

Quinten.

Family dinner.

Then, one Saturday, he didn’t come.

And the sirens sounded anyway.

They still do.

Every single Saturday.

There are certain sounds after losing someone that never sound the same again. A song. A ringtone. The sound of a vehicle coming down the driveway.

For me, it is those Saturday sirens.

They mark the time when my son should be walking through the door.

So I created a small place for Quinten in our home.

Some might call it a shrine.

I do.

There are pictures of him there. A beautiful sketch of his face sits in the center. Around it are photographs of moments from his life and small things that remind us of him.

And there are candles.

Every Saturday, I light them.

I light them when the sirens sound at noon.

It is my way of marking Quinten’s attendance at family dinner.

That may sound unusual to someone who hasn’t experienced this kind of loss.

But when someone has occupied a place in your family for 34 years, death doesn’t suddenly erase that place.

Quinten is still my son.

He is still part of our family.

And Saturday is still family dinner day.

The number of chairs around the table may have changed, but the number of people who belong to this family has not.

So when those candles are burning, I don’t think of them only as memorial candles.

I think of them as saying:

Quinten is here.

Not in the way I desperately wish he could be.

I would give anything to hear him walk through the front door again.

To see Lenny by his side.

To hear his voice.

To sit across from him at dinner.

To play another game of Uno.

To get one more hug before he left.

But I can’t have those things.

What I can do is make sure his absence never becomes erasure.

I can speak his name.

I can tell his stories.

I can keep his photographs where I can see them.

And every Saturday at noon, I can light his candles.

There is something comforting about ritual after loss.

Grief can make the world feel completely out of our control. The person we love is gone, and there is nothing we can do to change it.

A ritual doesn’t change that reality.

It doesn’t take away the pain.

But it gives our love somewhere to go.

Lighting those candles gives me something to do with the moment when the sirens remind me that Quinten isn’t coming.

Instead of allowing that sound to mark only his absence, I have chosen to let it mark his presence in our family’s story.

The sirens sound.

I light the candles.

And we remember.

There is another reason this ritual matters so much to me.

I never want our family to become uncomfortable including Quinten simply because he died.

I don’t want us to stop saying his name because we are afraid someone might become sad.

We are already sad that he isn’t here.

Talking about him doesn’t create that sadness.

Loving him created the possibility of that sadness.

And I would choose that love every single time.

As our family continues to grow and change, I want the younger ones to know him too.

I want them to hear the stories.

I want them to understand why Granny lights candles every Saturday when the sirens sound.

Someday, perhaps one of them will ask why.

And I will tell them.

I’ll tell them about their Uncle Quinten.

I’ll tell them how generous he was.

How much he loved his family.

How he loved Saturday dinners.

How he would arrive at noon.

How much we laughed.

How much we loved him.

And how much we still do.

Because that is what these candles really represent.

Not death.

Love.

A love that didn’t disappear on the day Quinten took his last breath.

A love that still gathers around our table.

A love that still belongs in our home.

A love that still deserves to be acknowledged.

There may always be an ache when noon approaches on Saturdays.

I suspect there will always be a part of me that watches out the front door for him.

But there is also gratitude.

For all those Saturdays when he did come.

For all those dinners.

For all those games of Uno.

For all those ordinary afternoons I didn’t know I would someday treasure so deeply.

So every Saturday, when the clock reaches noon, and the sirens begin to sound, I walk over to Quinten’s shrine, and I light the candles.

One more Saturday.

One more family dinner.

One more way to say:

You still belong here, Q.

Your place in this family is still yours.

And it always will be.

Walking with love after loss.