My manager scheduled a huge client presentation my first day back after Mum's funeral — do I say something?

Widowed with two kids under ten, so I came back to a job that genuinely couldn't hold much for me and I still remember the specific dread of my first "performing" task back: mine was a parent-teacher-style meeting I run each term, nowhere near as high stakes as a client pitch, and I still nearly cancelled it three times.

What actually helped me: I told my manager exactly what you're considering telling yours, and I added one line that made it easier for both of us: "I'll be back to full speed soon, this is just about getting the first week right." It signalled I wasn't asking for indefinite special treatment, just a sensible landing. She swapped me onto prep work instead and gave the meeting to someone else that one time. Nobody remembered it a month later. It felt enormous on the Sunday night; it was a non-event by the following Friday.

I'd gently push back on one thing in your post: you called it "only" a presentation, as if grief only counts as a legitimate reason to ask for something when there's a crisis attached. Six weeks after losing your mum, walking into a high-stakes room and performing composure on command is a genuinely heavy ask, and you don't need it to be a bigger emergency than it already is to justify raising it.

One practical addition to what's already been said: however Monday goes, expect that it might still be harder than you're picturing, even if you're taken off the presentation. First days back have a way of holding more than the tasks on the calendar. Go easy on yourself either way: a wobble on day one doesn't undo the strength it's taken to get through the last six weeks. There's more on what that first stretch back commonly looks like in how do you return to work after a bereavement, if it helps to see it laid out beyond just this one Monday.