Way of Life

The Shiva

Hi! Happy New Year (Or New Year's Eve)! Sorry for the wait.

Quick Sidenote. When "⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆" appears as a line break, that means we are going on to Marc's POV. When "♡♡♡" appears, we are going to be on Izabella's POV. Later chapters will include Steven and Jake's.

Anyhow, since I am not Jewish, nor am I wholly informed over Judaism, I have researched the subjects of a Shiva and funerals in Judaism, but I can't say they are fully correct. I won't go too in depth, as I don't want to spread misinformation. If anyone is well versed and has more knowledge, I will gladly change anything that is incorrect.

NOT ALL CHARACTER'S THOUGHTS/ DIALOGUE REFLECT THE AUTHOR'S OPINION

TW: Mourning, Emotional Abuse (Blame), PTSD Flashbacks

♡♡♡

How the world can seem so vacant to one person-- to a whole family-- like a lifeless void filled with mechanical motions and day to day planning. How one second, someone would be making a call to a family member, only to end up crying the next. Wails echoing through the house, arms wrapping in a tight reassurance to a sorrowful situation until everyone seemed to be in a fit of mourning.

And yet to everyone else, to those that hear the news as a tiny tidbit of passing information, carry on with their lives as if nothing had happened. As if something so detrimental, so horrifying to even hear, hadn't happened at all.

Life carried on for those that Randall's death didn't affect. But here, in this home, in the house that lost their youngest member, a child, life felt nonexistent. Dead eyes brimming with tears, red faces and downturned frowns. Each day nothing more than planning for the funeral, calling for family, and preparing for the Shiva.

The usual happy chatter, vibrant smiles and noisy ruckus had dimmed. A noiseless house, nothing but the creaking of floorboards and bawled screams in the night, left in the wake of The Incident.

Within a day, within hours of the ambulance driving off with Randall's lifeless, dead, little body, had the normal home Izabella had come to know vanish into a shell of what it used to be. One bubbly, kind, sweet, little boy gone from the family, enough to leave a gaping hole in each of their hearts.

The first night, when the rain had finally cleared and the clouds slowly dispersed leaving only the night sky to twinkle its stars down from above, there had been nothing but grieving solitude. There had been no dinner, no lively chatter when they sat around the table with each other, clogged throats keeping them from talking.

There was an emptiness that consumed them as they sat beside one another on the couch. Sitting in silence, curled into one another. Dad's arm wrapped around Marc, pulling the boy into his side as Marc clung to him. Muffled sobs slowly dying away, Dad's hand running up and down Marc's shoulder and arm, pulling him closer with each motion as Marc buried his head further into Dad's shirt. Dad's other arm resting across Izabella's back, letting her head lay on his shoulder, relentless tears spilling from her eyes. Dad's slowly dripping down his cheeks, soaking into his drying and cold shirt.

It felt like hours before Mom had finally come inside. The gentle turn of the knob and creak of the door altering them of her entrance before she appeared in the doorway. There had been that same look in her eyes. Distant, where the world was nothing but a blurred image in front of her. Where her eyes would look their way, stare directly at her, Marc and Dad, only to not register a thing. Numbed to everything around her, where even her own family was unable to draw her attention back to reality.