Funerals are usually terribly sad affairs, with friends and family crying into their hand-me-down handkerchiefs or onto someone else’s shoulder. However, if the funeral you’re attending is the right persons, you can’t help but feel that justice has been done. You would know what I mean if you knew the person we are burying today. The man is my sorry excuse of a father, James Cairns.
The people I trust are here. I’m seen as an outcast, so the rest of the town doesn't come. Even though the people here knew who he was and what he was like I still have to look all sad and depressed all day even though I am jumping for joy inside.
Now if you re-read what I just said you’ll probably think that I’m a cynical super-bitch who hates all the people who are closest to her. This honestly cannot be further from the truth. I love my friends; they mean the world to me. However, he was my only family and I couldn’t wait for him die.
He was an awful person and he was rude. He was an alcoholic, racist who loved nothing more than gambling away what little money we had; while putting me down every chance he got, and enjoying it. Great guy, don’t you think?
Everyone here though is dressed in black, gathered at the Site for the service and burial. Then everyone returns to the home of the deceased for a meal and the Final Words, written by each person every year on their birthday. It’s a final goodbye to our loved ones in case we don’t make it to the next year. It also covers who gets what possessions and money have been left behind. It also says who looks after anyone under the legal age of emancipation, the age we are legally allowed to live by ourselves. It’s all very regimental, we come, we cry, we go home, we eat, we drink, we read, we sleep, and we get on with our lives. You have to do that here.
I live in the coastal village of Rhine on the remote island of Darin, off the coast of mainland Europa. Rhine is modest and hard working but we have no luck with money. We live poor, because the rich are stereotypically greedy and blind to what happens outside of their grand banquet halls. But the people here wouldn’t want it any other way, and neither would I.
***
Standing here is hard for me. I’m pretending to miss a man that Idespised for so long. He was an asshole and a bastard. But he wasn’t always like that though; he used to be kind and loving. We would go out sometimes and sit up in the hills and wait for the sun to sink below the horizon with ever changing patterns of pink and orange hues. We would talk to each other about anything and everything. From what bread the baker will sell in the morning, to the reason birds fly south in the winter even though it’s just as cold when they fly back in the summer. Those conversations were some of the best times of my life. We kept no secrets from one another; there was no need to.
But when my mother passed he changed, for the worse. He never told me anything, we didn’t talk for what seemed like months, and my favourite conversations with my dad were gone. He began to become more and more controlling. I wasn’t allowed out except for shopping and work, school is there for those who can afford it. Soon after mother died we moved from the village square to the outskirts where the nearest neighbour was a 10 minute walk and a 30 minute walk from the nearest shop or school.
He secluded me and began to abuse me every chance he got. Thankfully he never touched me inappropriately but that doesn’t mean the abuse didn’t leave an impression on me that will last a lifetime. In a way though, it made me that much stronger. All the abusive comments and neglect, although it hurt at first I soon became accustomed to it and accepted the pain; then the pain dulled and I soon forgot what that pain felt like. After that I lived a life void of emotion, with so many walls built up that not even the many weapons the Peacers possess could have any hope in breaking them down. Or at least that’s what I thought.
As I watch my father’s casket being lowered into the ground, all the anger; frustration and pain come through the cracks and are released at once. I let out a giant sob; tears begin streaming down my face. I bring my hands up to my face hoping that people will not see how this makes me feel. My hopes are crushed when the priest comes over in his black ceremonial garbs, and hands me a tissue. I almost recoil from his touch because I know what he is about to say. I am unable to hold in the next wave of tears as he says to me “I am so sorry for your loss” I can feel my shoulders shaking and I can hear myself wailing. I almost don’t recognise the sound at first, not realising that it’s me. This doesn’t feel real at all.
I keep thinking, perhaps a part of me is hoping that this is all a dream and I’ll wake up in my sorry excuse for a bedroom with my sorry excuse for a dad crashing around downstairs looking his next liquor bottle, while verbally abusing me before I am even awake with insults like “you money pinching whore where’s the liquor?”, “stupid bitch I wish you were never born”, a lot of the time he wouldn’t find anything and he would order me to get some from town with what little money we had. Needless to say there was no food so a lot of the time I went without dinner. But I learned to fend for myself, and by fend for myself, I mean if the baker was missing a loaf or if someone’s pie was stolen while it was cooling on the window sill... it was probably me.
As I regain my composure, the priest turns to me and asks “Should we return to your home and read your fathers Final Words?” I look up and I see that his face shows nothing more than concern for me.
“I am grateful Priest Adams; however I'd like to read them alone. Unless you know a greedy cousin I’ve never met before?” I reply with a weak smile. Traditionally a priest reads the Final Words, to stop fighting over who owns what. I know he is fine with this; no one wants to be seen with an outcast longer than usual. He gives me a sad smile and rests a comforting hand on my shoulder. He says he’ll be over in the morning to see how I am. I turn to leave but noticing the worried looks from my two best friends, Anika and Rayyan, and their parents I feel I should say something. I wait a moment trying to find the right words, and I say “Thank you all for coming, those of you who are here knew who he was and what he was like. But above all of that he was my dad, and I will still miss him. Thank you again.” I look at Anika and smile weakly, she gives me a typical Anika are-you-okay nod and I smile again and give her a small nod. I look at Rayyan he just gives me a wink, pulls his shoulders back and lifts his chin up. Telling me to buck up and stand tall, so I do. I thank everyone again and begin my journey home.
The road from the town to my home is a long one, but it isn’t a bad one. The faint pathway made from the footprints of people who have travelled here is over grown with wild flowers and weeds that haven’t died from the harsh cold yet. Along the way there are fragrant lavender and rosemary bushes whose sweet scents never fail to put my mind at ease.
I stop walking and drink in my surroundings, the smell of the lavender, the colours of the field, and the feel of the wind on my face. I look at the sky and I see that the grey September clouds have disappeared allowing the sun to set the sky on fire. I realise, quietly, that feel I lighter than I have ever felt, like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I could easily set off and fly in the sky away from this place away from the hurt, the painful memories and also the happy ones so I can start a new life. I feel so calm and it is as if I can do anything.
I begin walking again with an unfamiliar spring in my step because I don’t have anything to worry about anymore.
