Ivana

Part II

Four Years Ago

Pain.

It's a beautiful yet a devastating feeling at the same time.

The fact that any living being can feel pain has always intrigued me.

The moment I heard the news, I had started laughing. It was a maniacal kind of laugh which scared me. I couldn't grasp the fact. I just felt hollow and didn't know how to feel. Suffice to say that I was feeling a multiple number of emotions. Shock, disbelief, feeling of loss, and most of all, pain. The feeling of emptiness had completely swallowed me.

Now, sitting here, on this bench with Jordan, watching the funeral, I was finally starting to look at my surroundings. Really look.

He was dead.

I finally realised why I had reacted in that way. I was stubborn.
I didn't want to believe that he was dead. I didn't want him to die.

"Hard life boy, ain't it?"

I nearly jumped out of my shoes when I heard that familiar high pitched throaty voice. For a guy. I was so drowned in my own thoughts that I didn't even hear him approaching me.

"Yeah", I nodded.

"She's not that strong, your mother." He stated as a matter of fact, taking a seat to my left. Jordan snickered ever so silently beside me that made me stomp on his foot. Hard.

I merely nodded. Not true. I have never seen a woman stronger than her in my life. Trust me, knowing her for the past seventeen years of my life, she has never ceased to amaze me. She has always been my life support. She has supported me in my worst of times and has always encouraged me. Heck, I have only seen her cry, like three or four times as far as I remember, and now.

"Then I don't think she could've been here." I said watching her, in her black dress which went just below her knees, her straight blonde hair combed neatly ending at her waist, holding flower bouquet in her right hand and her cell phone in her left, standing beside his grave, talking to an old woman. From where I could see, the old woman was trying her best to lighten up the mood but was only met with a grimace.

"True that." He said shrugging in his black suit, which, I guess, was bought and kept in the closet for this particular occasion.

I turned my head towards my right as I heard more footsteps approaching us.

I stood up as I recognized them. They were my father's colleagues. There were two of them. One had slightly brown hair neatly combed to the side, was stout and well above forty and the other one, who was currently extending his hand out for me to shake, had slick black hair and was in his mid fifties. He had an air around him that screamed 'business' all the way.I easily towered over them at my 6'2" frame. I shook his hand and found myself being pulled into a comforting hug.

"Mr. Thompson was a nice man." He said, his voice thick with emotion.

"Yes." I replied, as I willed myself to stay strong, "He was."

He pulled back and regarded me with a serious face.
"You resemble him a lot, you know."

Tears threatened to spill from my eyes as I tried to hold my emotions back with a leash.

"Yeah, I get that a lot. Thanks." I tried to smile but it came out as a grimace.

He chuckled in return. I shook hands with the other man as he introduced himself, "James Donvan, your father's PA. I'm sorry for your loss." He said sincerely and I smiled a little in return.

"Cancer, was it?" He asked softly after a minute of killing silence.
Jordan tensed up beside me and I figured he remembered the time when we used to visit my father when he was at the hospital.

"Yes, leukemia." I said with a heavy sigh. I pinched the bridge of my nose as memories flashed at the back of my mind.

We stood there for a while before they both nodded and made their way towards the exit.

I let my gaze wander over to my mother who was by now standing at the exit , staring off in a distance.

I walked over to her and called her,

"Mom."

She snapped out of her daze and looked in my direction,
"Cody. Jordan.", she acknowledged us with a nod.

I hadn't realized that Jordan had been walking beside me.And Jordan too nodded at her.

"You are okay right?", I asked her with concern.

She only nodded and smiled a little in return which made me relax.

As I stood by her side, people began offering their condolences and hugged us, marking the end of the funeral.

"Let's go home", mother said as she turned towards us.

○ ° ○

I parked our car inside the garage and got out, with the car keys in my right hand and headed for the front door. I kept thinking the whole way to my room about him.

My dad.

You know, never in my dreams I would've thought of losing him. The idea alone had always scared me. Losing someone so close to you, dear to you. He was and is someone I'll always look up to. He is the kind of person I want to be.
Capable of handling myself, my feelings, my thoughts, my words and my actions.

The saying,'Think before you act' is pretty hard when practiced, and the only person I've ever seen who is capable of doing that is him. I've never been the tough or the weak kid in my family, I thought that being an only kid made you tough which of course, proved to be wrong.

And now at this point of time, I suddenly felt exhausted. I was drained of any sort of energy, mentally as well as physically.

And so was my mom.

Talking about her, his death had hit her really hard. But she accepted the reality as soon as it came towards her, unlike me.
It took me nearly three days to believe that he was actually no more.

Grief.

When a person dies, you grieve and mourn for their loss. But when someone you love or admire dies, you don't just grieve or mourn. You pray, you remember , you cherish and you move on.
The pain seems to fade with time, but when thought about it again, a fresh wave of pain and grief hits you.

And similarly, watching someone dear to you being eaten away by grief and pain, doesn't just double the pain, it makes you want to be stronger. Maybe not for yourself, but for them.

For me, watching my mother bawl her eyes out felt like someone punching me in my gut. Seeng her once bright green orbs lifeless, made a piece of my heart break.

So no. I couldn't break now, not when she is weak. Not when she needs a shoulder to cry on.

Because my dad was the person who had once told me that when a person comes into this world, he has to go, one way or the other, so never grieve for something that's bound to happen.

Always expect the unexpected.

I had scoffed at that time and had even made some witty remarks. But the old sayings, no matter how much dumb they sound, always convey their meaning when that kind of thing actually happens to you.

○ ° ○