The school kept my daughter’s name on her locker

Dear Delyara, My daughter died during the summer between eighth and ninth grade. Leukemia. She had already been assigned a locker for the new school year. I learned that today because the school counselor asked whether I wanted to see it before they reassigned it. Her name was still printed on a small label above the handle: MAYA RIVERA — 9B. She never opened it. Never forgot the combination, never slammed it during an argument, never taped photographs inside, never shoved a coat into it because she was late. I stood in an empty hallway staring at a metal rectangle that contained an entire school year she had been preparing to begin. The counselor asked whether I wanted the label. I said no, then changed my mind before she peeled it off. Now it is in my wallet. I keep touching the edges. Everyone knows how to mourn the years someone lived. I am discovering there is another grief for the things already waiting for them: a locker, a timetable, textbooks ordered in their name, friends expecting them at lunch. Death does not only end a life. It leaves ordinary places awkwardly holding space for someone who had every reason to believe they were coming.