Before you go... //h.s

Not About Angels

ITS THE CHAPTER WE'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!!

The inky blackness envelopes me, covering me like a protective blanket as I lie in the field and stare at the stars. I'm back in the same field I was in before, for no apparent reason. I had never really been to that field before at all yet here I was, finding myself drawn to it again.

The rain tips down on me, but I don't protest, I don't mind it. The coolness of the water droplets is helping to calm my brain that won't shut up, even for a second.

I think it's because I could see the stars from here, I could watch the constellations turn on their endless journey around the world. I could feel the glow of my star looking down on me and now, more than ever, it felt like someone was watching out for me.

I felt as though my mum was in the stars now, her soul embodied in one of those stars to provide light and hope forever and always. She would have liked that, the idea that she was guiding people and I liked the idea she was guiding me.

Hopefully wherever she was up there, all her hurts and pains had been resolved and she was back to the smiling, forever helpful woman that I so desperately wanted to remember her as. No matter how close we had or hadn't been, she was still my mum and I still missed.

The whole in my heart remained, a hole that had begun from my anxiety and ocd getting worse, then largened when I lost Harry and had become a gaping gap when I lost my mum.

This year had been shitty for me and I couldn't wait for 2020 to come and bring better things.

'hi mum,' I whisper quietly up to the stars, hugging my knees and rocking myself back and forward like a small child. A raindrop hit the tip of my nose, making me scrunch it as it tickles. It almost feels like I'm talking to her again, but talking to the her I used to know, not the woman who spent her last month's unable to do anything for herself. The idea gives me an indescribable sense of comfort.

My phone lights up with a text and I notice the time: midnights passed. So, it's now officially the day of my mum's funeral.

The day I have to say goodbye to her forever.

'I'm not ready to let you go,' I confess to wherever my mum is up in the stars, 'I can't do this anymore. Please send something my way, anything my way. And I'll know it when it comes so please send me a sign you're looking out for me. I need you to be up there, I need you to still be watching me and helping me. Please.' I whisper the words as I continue to stare at the beauty of the stars in reverence.

'I love you,' I murmur sorrowfully, giving the stars on last look as a tear rolls down my cheek silently, joining in the pool of raindrops by my feet.

 

My black dress is short, but respectfully so, with capped sleeves. I wear black tights under it with small, black kitten heels. The only colour in my outfit is a small string of pearls that used to belong to my mother, and even they are only white.

My dad and brother are clad in black suits are sombre as their faces.

Other neighbours and old friends are gathered around us in their own respectful black. The weather is cold, the January chill biting through the air but the winter sun is up, casting a glow over the frosted grass.

Since my family never have been particularly religious, it didn't make sense to bury my mother in a graveyard so although there's a coffin standing in the centre of our group, my mother's body is not in it.

She wanted to be cremated and her ashes scattered about the place she loved most; the windswept beach she spent all her time on as a child and later spent all her time on watching her children grow and discover.