I ambled slowly through the crowd of sorrow stricken people, I watched my feet so I didn't have to see their looks of pity. I'd had enough sadness the past two weeks, the pain pressing on my chest felt as if I would burst. When I finally reached the front of the crowd, I scanned some of the faces around me. But only one face captured my attention, the face of my mother. The woman who has carried the weight of the world on her frail shoulders ever since Colbie, my little brother, died.
Looking at my mother, It struck me that stress of decades was etched on her face overnight. Her hair that once danced like a fire, now drooped lifelessly around her face. The glimmer that radiated from her eyes drawing everyone to her had extinguished and nothing but a gray haze now filled her eyes. The crows feet that were trailing from her eyes mapped the horrible memories of the stress and sorrow she had delt with the past few days. Her lips were no longer curled up in the enchanting smile. Instead, a stick-like line was permanently drawn in its place with lifeless color.
" We have gathered here today to morn the death of.." I couldn't even listen as the preacher spoke his indulgent words. My eyes went back to my mother and saw that her posture was now stiff and almost fake like a manquine. There was no trembling, no shaking, no crying. She was hollow from sitting with a glazed look. Her black dress clung tightly to her petite body , it didn't stop the sadness that radiated off of her like waves surrounding a pebble thrown in a lake. Mother was a different person. She was slowly transforming, disintegrating, almost like a disease that slowly inched its way through Colbie before destroying him.
"Would anyone like to say a few words?" the preacher concluded. Silence gripped the air as no one dare spoke a word. Then six solider like men marched to the casket and gently lowered it into the endless hole. I edged closer to my mother and grasped her cold hand. There was no grip in return. We both stared silently as the my brother was lowered into the mass of darkness. I stole a look at my mother's profile. The wrinkles, lines, and hardness of her face groaned that my mother had died with my little brother..
