I was driving home from Chloe’s gymnastics last night when I got the call.

 
Chloe was just finishing her rendition of “It’s Taco Tuesday. Taco Tuesday. Ta-co, Tues-day!” (I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was Monday)

 
I don’t like to answer my phone when I’m driving but when I saw it was coming from home, I thought it might be something important.

I pressed “speaker” on the phone as I don’t have a blue-tooth adaptor for my mini-van because my husband, the technology guru, has decided my mini-van isn’t cool enough for modern technology.

Greg said, “Liz, I have bad news,” and then there was a long pause.

 
I wasn’t sure if I should pull over but I was merging onto the highway so I decided to take a deep breath and wait for him to go on.

 
“Liz, I have bad news.” My mind was racing. The pause before he started to speak again seemed to take forever. It was like every email my Mom ever sends with the subject line: “Do you know So-and-So?” and then in the body of the message the words: “Because they died.”

 
I worried Greg was at the hospital with one of our kids, that my Grandmother had fallen ill, that someone had been in a terrible accident.

 
I took a deep breath and told Greg he was on speaker phone so whatever he was about to say, Chloe was going to hear.

 
He said, “Okay, listen.”

 
Oh God, I’m listening. Deep breath.

 
“So Ellie ate almost all the taco meat so there’s not much left for you and Chloe when you get home.”

Taco Monday will never be the same.