On and on, like we're living on a broken record
Hope is strong, but misery's a little quicker
We sit and we wait and we drown there
Thinking why bother playing when it's unfair?
~"Battle Scars", Paradise Fears
The funeral was a quiet affair. There were neighbours, distant relatives. No one as close to you as I was. I don't know. I can't remember specific faces. I wasn't really trying to remember anything at all.
I was supposed to give the eulogy. When they called me I walked, slowly, to the front of the room. I hadn't prepared a speech. I stared at the faceless crowd in the room. No one made a sound.
I stared for a long time.
I couldn't do this.
So I ran. I ran and ran and ran, until I absolutely could not take it anymore. I knelt down in the grass and threw up.
It just kept coming out and out, and when I was done, I was sobbing. Not quiet tears that slid down my face; loud, uncontrollable sobs. Up till then, I hadn't shed a single tear.
Oh, how I cried.
I had a strange feeling of déjà vu. I recalled the last time I had felt like this: helpless and hopeless. You had come then. It seemed like an eternity ago.
You would not come now.
You never would come again.
...
There was a dark, dark period of time when I considered it. Joining you. Just one leap off the building, and we would be together again.
But no. I couldn't bring myself to do it. For one reason and one reason only: our child. I promised to take care of her for you.
She was the only thing that got me through the days.
...
Three weeks and four days after the funeral, our daughter was born.
She was six pounds and eighteen inches.
I named her Hope.
You never got to meet her.
