Cancer.
Eleven months from diagnosis to funeral.
Afterward, I spent nearly a year wandering through my own life like a stranger occupying someone else’s body.
I worked as a forensic insurance auditor in Pittsburgh, reviewing complex claims involving medical facilities, nonprofit organizations, and privately held companies.
Numbers made sense.
People did not.
Then one rainy October evening, I attended a charity dinner benefiting organ-donation education.
I almost didn’t go.
My employer had purchased a table, and everyone else found an excuse.
I arrived alone.
Halfway through dinner, a tall man in a black tuxedo sat beside me.
“You look like someone planning an escape.”
I glanced toward him.
“Is it that obvious?”
“Only because I’ve been planning the same thing.”
That was Thad.
Forty-one.
Polished.
Patient.
Funny without performing for attention.
He ran Bromel & Sons Memorial Services, one of the oldest funeral companies in Pennsylvania.
His family owned six funeral homes, two crematoriums, a monument company, and several commercial properties.
I disliked him immediately.
