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 "May her soul rest in peace and her heart be lifted up to heaven..." The priest prays, setting his hand gently on the closed wooden casket. I look all around me, everyone's head is bowed down in prayer. Some people are crying, others have the most empty expression on their face. Black silk dresses and veils surround me, constantly reminding me why I'm here, what had happened.

     My father wraps his arm around me and pulls me into his side, a tear slipping down his cheek and on to his black tux. I stare blankly at the floor, I seem to be the only one around here that isn't crying. My father kisses the top of my head and only then do I notice his scent. He was wearing the collagne my mother had gotten him for his birthday only weeks earlier, I had helped her pick it out. My father wasn't much a of cologne kind of guy, instead he had always smelled of aftershave and cinnamon. But today was different. It was the beginning of the end so to speak.

     My life wasn't always this depressing. In fact, only a few days earlier I was on my way to the beach with my family to spend the summer with my father's friend and his family. That's when the accident happened and everything changed.

     "Let us leave here today, not mourning over what we've lost, and instead embrace the new angel we have now to watch over us through out the rest of our lives." The priest chimed. I bite down hard on my lip, I hated this. All of it. A funeral is the celebration of someone's life. I just don't understand, how am I supposed to be happy when my mother just died? How am I supposed to be celebrating? How is anyone supposed to celebrate?

     Only yesterday it seemed I was bragging to my friends all about the beach and how I would visit the ocean everyday. I live in Iowa, so going to the beach is quite a rarity. My mother always loved the beach so much, although she had only went to one once. It was my parents anniversary and they decided to go spend a week at the beach. I stayed home and one of the nearest neighbors watched over me. When they returned, mother had told me all about the beach. She spoke of it's natural beauty, how the water seemed to go on forever. She told me how the sand felt under her feet. She loved the waters shimmering glow in the morning, but most of all; she loved the sunsets. She told me all about the orangish, pinkish tint that lighted up the sky every night. Her and my father went out and sat along the shore just to watch it.

     "It's one of those things you can't just conjure up in your head." She had told me once. "It's one of those things you can see everyday and still never get tired of it." My goal for this summer was to go outside every night and watch the sunset with her. But plans change. My dad and I are still planning on going up to the beach in a few days, but this time, without my mother. 

     The absence of my mother will only make this vacation torturous. Every aching moment on that beach, will be a moment without my mother. Things are already so different without her, I can't even imagine what this summer is going to be like.