Sadder, but Wiser

Ch. 2 - The Serious Decisions Taken by Officials

 Anna’s POV:

The last month had been though.

My feelings of loneliness and sense of helplessness hadn’t disappeared. Neither had the big lump that was stuck in my throat and stomach, and just the thought of food seemed nauseating to me. I’d barely been able to eat at all the last month, and I felt empty, devoid of emotion, except for when I was with Hina and Haru. I don’t think I’d ever been able to even stand up if it hadn’t been for them. The last month it had been the thought of what would happen to them if I didn’t pull myself together that had been driving me.

The first week I’d been too shocked to really feel much. I went into autopilot. I didn’t really think after the first night, and whenever I did, it was always pure logic without emotion attached to it. I managed to arrange the funeral for my parents, brother and Aoi without too much trouble. I’d gotten help though.

My parent’s friends and neighbors, and friends of my brother and Aoi arrived after midday the day after I got the news. Suddenly we had a lot of people surrounding us, though to be honest; I only wanted to be alone, alone with only my best friends and Hina and Haru. Most of all of course I wanted to be with mom and dad, Chris and Aoi. All of us having one of those huge family dinners that we used to have at least once a month, but I was starting to realize that that was impossible.

Either way, the first week passed in a blur of neighbors, friends and my family’s friends, receiving condolences and food from acquaintances, flowers and the likes. If anybody asked me something I would automatically reply, though as everything else about me I guess the replies were rather dead and lifeless, without much emotion. Nothing really evoked much feeling in me.

Then as suddenly as they arrived, everybody started leaving. They excused themselves, told me how sorry they were that they couldn’t help me more than they had, but they “needed” to go back to work, or home to their own families. Which of course I could understand, but I could help but think about how easily they moved on. How nothing seemed to have changed for them. I came to realize what happens when you die, and it wasn’t a pleasant thought.

What really happens you see is this; Nothing, nothing at all. Life goes on. People go on. Nothing really changes. Maybe you leave a few people grieving, left all alone in the world, but the world still moves around. Nothing stops, because of your death. It’s gruesome and hurts terribly for the ones that are grieving, but that is all. I felt like my heart had been ripped out, and left in its place was a big void, a whole lot of nothingness. I felt like I had become twenty years older in only a few weeks, and suddenly all my values and interests in life had changed. I no longer found pleasure in all the things I’d previously found hilarious and fulfilling.

I felt like I was turning into a depressing and cynical being that cared about little to nothing other than her niece and nephew. I still went to school, though only a few days a week, as I’d managed to make an agreement with the principal and my teachers who had been really lenient and understanding as to why it was difficult for me to be there every day. I started working more, both in the restaurant I started working at just a few months ago, and with my music.

I had several meetings with the bank and my parents and brothers attorney, among these meetings where a few about my inheritance, others about Hina and Haru’s inheritance. How we, or they really had organized it. Which accounts I could access. Which were to be closed funds until Haruki and Hinata reached adulthood, and I was also informed of school funds that Chris and Aoi had started saving the moment Haru and Hina were born.

I also had several meetings with the attorney and a child welfare officer about who were to take care of Hinata and Haruki. I was still dead set on doing anything in my power to get custody of them. I refused to let them be tossed around in the system, possibly split into different foster homes, though it seemed harder than I’d thought it would. I had known since the moment I was told about the death of my brother and Aoi that I would fight my way through hell and back again, before I let anything happen to the only relatives I had left. I was never going to let them be sent to foster homes.

I was legally an adult, so the authorities wouldn’t bother about me, but two four year old orphans they would, and they did. The attorney said that originally the custody over the twins was originally to be transferred to their registered Godfather and that that would have been the ordinary procedure, but that unfortunately they had been unable to contact him.

I was a bit shocked. I never knew that he was to be appointed their guardian if anything happened to my brother or his wife, though I guess that since he was my brother’s best friend, whom my brother trusted with his own life, it wasn’t really that much of a surprise after all. Although I can’t deny that I was shocked that nobody had gotten in touch with him.

The attorney, whose name is Philip Christiansen by the way, only said something vague about an extreme project that made it impossible to contact him. I never really got any actual facts about him. They, as in Philip and the Child care officer, Claire, avoided mentioning him as much as possible and instead they talked about finding a temporary solution as it still wasn’t certain when it would be possible to contact him, which was what really surprised me.

Claire McLean, the child care officer informed me that according to the norm, Hina and Haru would be put in a temporary home, but I was really opposed to the idea. I wanted them to stay with me, or more like I needed them to stay with me. At the moment they were the only thing that kept me from a complete breakdown. I had learned a lot these past weeks about strength, and I realized that nobody who hadn’t experienced a huge loss could ever imagine just how much it took of you. How much strength you needed to make the days go by on your own.

 I desperately needed Hina and Haru, just as I would like to think that they needed me. They are both so extremely young. They have no clue what it really means to be dead, and even though I have told them several times that mommy and daddy can never come home because they are far far up in the sky, both of them ask numerous times a day when mommy and daddy are coming home. It breaks my heart. What little is left of it anyway, not that that is much more than a few tiny shards.

I think Claire and Philip both realized that we needed each other. That even though I was only Eighteen years and a few weeks, I could handle the responsibility and somehow I didn’t get that huge problem I thought I was in for because of my status as a high schooler, and I have Claire to thank for that.

She isn’t one of the stereotyped Child welfare workers. No, she’s actually a fresh out of uni, blonde 23yrs old.

[A/N: I'll end it here for today. I know it's actually in the middle of a chapter and that I'm just starting to describe Claire and eveything that's happened in the weeks that have passed since the prologue, but I'm too busy to write anymore today, and it's been so long since the last time I posted anything. So I just wanted to get something out there, though I promise I'll try to continue tomorrow and complete both this chapter and rewrite the weird end on the previous chapter.

x Laura]