You and I

Chapter 17: My pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand

Chapter 17: My pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand

Chapter title lyrics from "Ivy" by Taylor Swift. Sorry I suck and haven't posted in so long! 😩 I swear I'll finish this eventually 😅😅

April 2018

"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul; He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me ..."

Sharon was aware that the pastor was speaking, but the words weren't registering in her brain. Nothing was. She hadn't cried since the night her father passed away when she had talked to Tarja on the phone. She just felt numb.

She remembered the past week in a dreamlike haze, but she was fairly certain she had spent most of it in bed. Robert had tried to get her to eat, fixing her bowls of soup and bringing them up to her, but she had only been able to take a few bites before feeling nauseous. She saw images of her kids' concerned faces and heard her mother's and Robert's voices in the next room, then felt her mother's hand gently stroking her hair.

She was grateful that Robert and her mother had made the funeral arrangements because she hadn't had the energy to even get out of bed, much less make phone calls. The main service had been at church that morning, and a few people had spoken, but she hadn't. She couldn't.

A smaller group of family had split off after the service to go to the burial while everyone else went to their house, where their friends had organized a reception with refreshments.
Actually having a reason to leave the house had forced her to get out of bed, shower, and do her hair and makeup. But the whole time she was getting ready, she felt like she was on autopilot, like someone else was controlling the motions of her body while her mind was somewhere faraway.

She and her mother stood the closest to the casket, where it lay raised on a bed of roses. Her mother was wiping tears from her eyes with a handkerchief, and she could hear crying and the whispered voices of her kids from where they stood behind her with Robert.

One by one, people approached the casket and placed a rose on the closed lid. Robert held Logan's hand as he dropped his rose in, and she heard Robert talking to him softly as they stood in front of the casket. Her heart clenched. She knew her children had been dealing with grief of their own, and she hadn't even been there to help them through it.

She was the last to go after her mother, who had given her arm a gentle squeeze before she stepped forward. She stared at the mahogany wood of the casket after she had let her rose go, unable to fully comprehend that beneath that lid was her father. The man who had swum with her in the ocean when she was a little girl, letting her sit on his shoulders so she had a better chance of spotting sea turtles or dolphins. The man whose deep voice had sung along to the radio in their VW bus when they went on summer road trips as the warm air whipped through the windows.

She could still hear his booming laugh, see the twinkle in his eye, and feel the stubble of his beard against her forehead when he hugged her. How could all of that be reduced to this? To silence?

She felt a pair of arms encircle her waist, and she looked down to see Luna embracing her. Only then did she realize that she had been standing motionless in front of the casket for at least a minute.

"It's going to be okay, Mom," Luna whispered, and Sharon hugged her daughter back just as tightly.

Next came the dirt, and then she watched as her father was lowered into the ground. She had expected to feel more emotion as he vanished beneath the earth, but she realized that she didn't think of him as disappearing now when she knew he was already gone.