Here Comes The Sun - The Beatles
Follow You - Bring Me The Horizon
Fast Car - Tracy Chapman
If I’m There - Bad Omens
Iris (Acoustic) - Goo Goo Dolls
Sinners (feat. Thomas La Rosa) - Ari Abdul
Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol
Comin’ Home - City and Colour
Isaac - Bear’s Den
labour - Paris Paloma
Ping.
Ping.
Ping.
No one ever tells you what a funeral is really like. They don’t talk about the soul-shattering wails of mourners as they stand graveside, loudly expressing their devastation. They don’t recall the distinct scent of fresh, wet soil and decay permeating the air. No one talks about the salty taste of tears that coat your tongue as you try again and again to remind yourself this is real.
No.
All they ever recall is the pain.
The living, breathing pain that settles so deep inside you you can’t remember a time before it existed. It aches and throbs, festering like a fatal wound until you have no choice but to block it out entirely and sink into a state of complete and utter nothingness.
I’m doing everything in my power to fight it, but it’s a losing battle.
I know people are staring at me, expecting me to be the sobbing, mournful mess of an orphan I’m supposed to be. I’m left with nothing but the faint memories of my father, the fresh memories of my mother, and the love of the only two people I have left in the world.
Ping.
Ping.
Ping.
Rain pelts us, but I barely feel it. I barely hear the dull ping as it lands on the flower-covered casket in front of us. I can’t stop staring at the freshly turned earth, at the dirt that’s slowly becoming mud. At the casket sitting just above the deep hole, almost ready to be lowered and forgotten into the ground.
My mother is in there. In that beautiful, ornate box. Dead.
My mother is dead.
Isaac’s arm tightens around my shoulders, and I almost let out the sob I’ve been holding all day. I don’t know why the tears haven’t come, why they won’t come. A lump has been thick in my throat since I woke up this morning, but my eyes have stayed dry.
I was a child when my father died. I don’t remember the funeral. I don’t remember feeling like this. I don’t remember the sounds or smells or tastes. I only remember digging my face into Mama’s neck and letting her hold me as I fell to pieces.
I was too young to truly understand the finality of death, but I felt it. I felt it deep to my core, but Mama was there, holding me and comforting me with her familiar warmth.
A warmth that no longer exists because she’s dead
Dead, cold, and almost buried.