Light streamed through the stain glass, casting bright shapes dancing across the walls, a mixture of warm reds, cool blues and bright yellows. Peaceful and serene in everyway, it drenched the pale walls of the funeral home in happiness, something it rarely saw. But no, that happiness, that joy, was a scam, a terrible lie. It was treacherous, really, the amount of sadness that filled the building and its people, close to bursting.
This day, this event, was simply a formality, nothing more than a physical reminder of what we’d lost, only two days prior. Impossible to ignore yet painfully silent, the cause of this event lurked beneath the surface, threatening to strike my heart at any moment. The emptiness is what surprised me. The feelings that were filling my heart, I’d never before considered them, because I‘d never before considered life without her. The very thought of loosing her, the only person I could talk to, the only one who understood, sent me over the edge into darkness. We had so many memories, endless good times, I wanted to pull them in close to my heart, hold them and never let them go.
I hugged my knees to my chest, clothed in fine black silk, as a tear ran down my cheek. I didn’t understand why I was feeling so helpless, so painfully numb. Surely I’d known this was coming. The hospital visits, constant treatment, endless doctors, all giving the same wretched result. I should’ve expected this, predicted it, it wasn’t hard to tell. Yet I had clung to the hope that she’d get better, she’d heal and be healthy once again. But no, my grandmother had cancer, the truth of that statement was inevitable. She’d ran out of time, lost the uphill battle. And now, all that stretched before me was time, meaningless time without her.
