Canis Lupus

CHAPTER I

Gone. My mother was officially gone. Standing by my father's side, tears streaming down my face, I tried to be strong. But I couldn't. My mother and I were never that close. Hell I was never that close with anyone my entire life. With both my father and mother in the Marines we moved around a lot. And because we moved around a lot I never got close to anyone, not even my parents. They were gone almost all the time, gone before I woke up, and home after I went to bed; and that's when they were home. My parents weren't always there for me in my life, and yet here I was balling my eyes out as if I had just lost a dog or best friend. But I hadn't. I lost a mother who I loved but barely knew and standing next to me, my father. Not a single tear could be seen on his face as if he didn't care. I know he did. I know he hurt probably worse than I did but if he did he didn't show it. And that just angered me.
       My father rubbed my back, trying to calm me down, and get me to stop crying. He kept telling me that death happens and it's nothing to cry about. That we would all die one day. If I wasn't sad, and in front of a crowd I might have screamed, and yelled at him. But Instead I kept to myself, a hole in my heart, trying to keep myself from having an outburst.

    Seeing the closed casket my mother was held in, I felt my tears starting to dry and crust on my face. I needed to be strong. Even if it was my fault my mother had died alone. I had been selfish. I wanted to leave, the smell of the hospital and death consumed me. I didn't know how I knew it was death, It just seemingly had its own smell... and my mother was reeked of it. I guess I always had a knack for 'smelling' death. It wasn't pleasant, but almost every single time I went to a zoo (usually with my school) I had smelled death. I even freaked my teacher out when I pointed to one of the lions and said that it reeked of death. The thought brought a chuckle and small smile to my face. Laughing about knowing when something was going to possibly die wasn't funny and I knew that but freaking someone out with it was. "You ready to go son?" My father asked.

    "What?" I asked, looking around me. The graveyard was slowly emptying of the few friends and family of my mother who now laid in the grave next to her parents. Looking at their matching tombstones, a smile formed on my face. Although I wasn't close to my mother I knew she would've wanted to be buried by her parents. She wasn't the fondest of her parents, a.k.a my grandparents, hell they weren't even close but my father had told me how much she loved them even after all of the trouble they gave her.

    "Everyone's heading back to the hotel and the house." He said motioning to the people I guess were my family getting into cars.

    "Oh um, I didn't even realize we were done." I said no higher than a whisper. "I think i'll stay here for a little bit longer." I said trying to fake a smile in this sad time.

    "Okay." My father gave me a sad smile back. "Well here, i'll take the truck so you don't have to walk back to your grandparents house. I'll catch a ride with someone heading that way." He said, tossing me the keys to his truck. Turning his back to me he flagged down one of the others who were staying with us up at my grandparents old house instead of the hotel.

    Soon after, everyone was gone except me and the cleaning crew of the church we went through to do the funeral. Taking my suit jacket off, I unbuttoned the top two buttons trying to get some air flow onto my sweaty body. Who knew standing, sitting, standing, greeting family members and friends of both my mother and father, sitting, standing, and standing for five plus hours in a suit could make someone sweat so much!? Sitting down on the ground around the opened grave I let a few more tears fall from my face, their trails crusting where they fell.
         Although my mother and I weren't very close, she was probably the closest person I had to a best friend. Which was kinda sad since we rarely saw or even got to talk to each other. When my parents could, the one thing they did make time for was church. Almost every sunday my parents would wake me up early in the morning, my mother would make some breakfast whatever we had left over from the night before for dinner if they were home the night before for dinner, we'd get dressed, and go to church. Now i'm not going to lie and say I believe in the whole christian religion. I didn't believe in god, it just made no sense to me. But what my mother and I did afterwards is what had made sunday's my favorite days. Although my father would usually have to go back to work, my mother and I would go to the movies.