Gasps rippled through the church. Then she turned to us, her voice unsteady yet clear.

“No, I’m not mad,” she said. “And yes, I know how this looks. But if you’ll allow me… I’d like to tell you a story.”

Clutching a bouquet of lilies, she took a deep breath and began.

“Fifty years ago, I fell in love with a boy named Daniel at our high school prom. I was seventeen, he was eighteen. He wore a blue tie that didn’t match his suit, and he danced like he didn’t care what the world thought. That night, he told me, ‘Someday, I’ll see you in a wedding dress, Ellen.’ And I believed him.”

She paused, her eyes shining.

“Two weeks later, he was drafted to Vietnam. We kissed goodbye under a streetlight. He promised to write, and he did. So did I. We dreamed up a life in those letters. But then… his letters stopped. And two weeks later, I got a telegram: Ki*lled in action.”

Her voice broke, though she pressed on.

“I wore black. I kept his letters in a shoebox under my bed. I turned down every boy who asked me out. And when I turned twenty, I told my mother I’d never marry. She cried harder than she did the day we buried that telegram.”