Dolores died the following February. In her sleep. In the little house on Locust Street, with the framed photograph over the television.
She’d planned the whole funeral herself. On a legal pad. Karen helped her.
Trinity Lutheran was full. Fuller than it was for my mother. Nurses from Mercy, going back fifty years. Patients. People from the altar guild. Mr. Gustafson. Mrs. Halvorsen, in a wheelchair now, in the front row.
Bev’s grandson came with his boyfriend. They sat in the third pew.
Three young women came in together. They introduced themselves to Karen at the door. They were nursing students at Mercy. They’d heard the story from Phyllis. They wanted to pay their respects.
And Karen wore white.
A white wool suit she bought at Von Maur. Petersen Harned Von Maur doesn’t exist anymore, but Von Maur does. Same building. She said it seemed right.
She walked down that aisle in white. Past every pew. With her chin up. The way Dolores did.
Nobody whispered. Not one person.
Pastor Lindqvist read the passage from Ruth again. Where you go, I will go.
And then Mrs. Peterson played the wedding march on the organ. Slow, like a hymn.
Everybody stood up.
Every single person.
Dolores and Ruth are buried together now. Out at Oakdale. In a double plot Dolores bought in 2015. Their names are on the same stone. Dolores had it carved before she died, with a date on it.
APRIL 21, 1979.
Mom is three rows over. Next to Dad.
On the first warm Saturday every spring, Karen and I drive out to Oakdale with two bunches of daisies from the Hy-Vee. We put one on Mom and Dad’s grave. And we put one on Dolores and Ruth’s.
Last spring, Emma came with us. She was seven months pregnant. A girl. They’re naming her Helen Dolores.
Emma knelt down in the grass between the two graves. She laid her hand flat on the cold stone with Dolores’s name on it.
“Grandma Dee,” she said. “I still have the safety pin. It’s in the hem. I’m going to keep it there for Helen.”
Then she stood up and brushed the grass off her knees.
And the three of us stood there in the sun for a long time. Three women, between two graves. Not saying anything.
My mother lied to me exactly once in her whole life. About a wedding dress and a river and a basement full of mud.
The dress was never ruined.
It just went to somebody who needed it more.
And then it came home.
Specialty: Quiet Comebacks & Personal Justice
David Reynolds focuses on stories where underestimated individuals regain control of their lives. His writing centers on measured decisions rather than dramatic outbursts — emphasizing preparation, patience, and the long game. His characters don’t shout; they act.