Death Will Do Us Part

Memory

"..and that's all," Daria Collins, my first cousin, finishes. Daria sniffles and finds her seat, pressing a tissue to her eyes. My tissue has basically become drenched with my tears and sits in my lap, still attempting to suck up the sweat covering my palms.

The funeral director stands up to the podium and begins to speak,"Arielle was a kind-hearted and knowledgable young woman. As soon as Arielle closed her eyes for the last time here with us, they opened instantly somewhere else, with God."

I look to my right. My father's eyes are filled with tears, and he sniffles quietly. My stepmother clings to his arm, crying uncontrollably. My real mother left five years ago, when I was nine, and I haven't seen or heard from her since.

It's been hard for my father and I since she left. I had a brother, Connor, who had already moved out and as far away as he could before Mother died. He hated my father, I didn't understand why, so he never visited.

Connor and I were best friends before he began to dislike Father. He always stood up for me when I was bullied, and helped me with my homework when Father was busy.

Three years ago, Connor was the victim of a hit-and-run. He was pronounced dead at the scene of the crime. That hit my father and I like a bus. We were depressed for the next few months, and he let me skip school that whole time, which wasn't pleasurable to me, since I loved school.

    Arielle was shot in a dollar store robbery. She was one year older than me, so Father had sent her in the store to grab some napkins for the cookout that we would be having later that evening. The robbers held her at gunpoint while the cashier shoveled money out of the cash register and into the thieves' garbage bags. The money apparently wasn't enough, so they shot her in the head to intimidate the cashier. The perpetrators were later sentenced to life in prison for murder and armed robbery.

My aunt June died of lung cancer, which was strange, since she rarely smoked. But Uncle Charley, her husband, smoked almost two packs a day, and never developed any sort of illness from it. In fact, his health was mostly perfect.

Uncle Charley's smoking gene obviously passed on to his two sons. As soon as those vaporized electronic cigarettes came out, they were showing them off at family gatherings and blowing smoke rings in people's faces.

One year when I was about seven, they said they'd buy me ice cream if I blew a perfect smoke ring. So, I of course, being a little kid, took the opportunity, and held the device to my lips, parted them, and blew.

My father spotted me instantly and yanked the cigarette from my lips and stomped it into a zillion pieces. He was pissed, as were my cousins, who had probably spent their whole allowance for that single vaporizer.

But, I had earned that ice cream cone and my father reluctantly let them take me to the local parlor. I remember feeling like I accomplished something that day, as I inhaled the lovely vanilla cone that I had won.

I snap back into reality. The director is finishing up the service. ".....few employees will be guiding the vehicles to the burial site. Please follow them. You may now exit the building and start your vehicles."

As my father leads my stepmother and me out the door, I look back at my sister, and swear I see the slightest movement, the falling and rising of her chest.