|| This isn't really a oneshot but I'm gonna post it anyway because this is my way of grieving. It's a narrative essay I had to write in college, my topic was about my god dad passing so you can skip this if you want.||
6:32am
My screams were stuck in my throat. I wanted to cry out yet I wanted to stay silent. I wanted to fall to the ground and curl into a fetal position yet I wanted to cling onto my grandmother praying she didn't leave me next. All I knew how to do in that moment was cry on my mother's chest hoping what I was hearing was nowhere near true. My only godfather, the man who helped me with college applications, the man who took me in whenever I needed to escape from home, the man who had been my best friend for 17 years of my life was gone. The screams finally escaped my throat and they resembled those of a siren. The wails leaving my body almost seemed unearthly, inhuman at most. On that fateful day, February 23, 2019 at 6:32am my life had changed forever; yet I wasn't sure if it was for better or for worse.
The weather reflected everyone's mood that day; gloomy, depressing, no longer full of light. It was the dead of winter yet the clouds never released a snowflake, they only released raindrops the size of my tears; soft and subtle yet noticeable to the human eye. I felt numb; like an outsider in my own body. I felt as if anything I did or said was not coming from me. I felt like a new person but not in a pleasing way. I was slowly distancing myself from everyone around me; isolating myself and getting trapped inside a labyrinth I called my mind. I barely ate; I couldn't sleep yet I was so drained. I wanted to sleep but his face haunted my mind every time I closed my eyes making me fall further into the deep abyss that I called my emotions.
Minutes sped into hours yet the hours slowly turned into days. It felt as if his viewing was years away yet I didn't have the proper time to prepare my heart or mind to see him and though I had visioned it multiple times each vision ended with everything being a horrible dream. I just wish one of my visions had come true; that everything was a horrible dream or some type of sick prank. I had created a false reality in such little time I had gotten accustomed to that I never wanted to return to the real world, to my truth. I was going to see my main father figure lying in a casket and the image was driving me insane and I hadn't even laid my eyes on him yet. My world was slowly crumbling around me little by little and it was only the second month of the year. Much worse was to come and eventually it came down upon me like a hurricane.
March 8th had slowly approached and my heart dropped down to my feet. My grandmother and I had arrived to the funeral home for the viewing and I was utterly afraid to exit the car. So many family members surrounded the perimeter of the building but even more were crowded inside. My feet were glued to the carpeted floor once I stepped inside the heated building; I clung onto my grandmother like a small child as we slowly made our way through the crowd of people and soon enough I was standing in the doorway of the room. I felt so alone though dozens of people were around me; I felt like an outcast. No one knew who I was and I felt like I shrunk down in size; I should've come around more. Maybe then they would have understood my pain and anxiety. I had foolishly taken all of my moments with him for granted and this was the last memory I would be able to cherish; it just was nowhere near the one I had planned to be our last. I wasn't sure what I wanted it to be, but I never wanted to see him lying inside of that light grey silk lined casket.
The church was filled the day of his funeral; there was barely room for anyone to stand. So many people had come to bid him farewell yet I still felt like I was the only one there. The choir stand was filled with family members and the front rows were packed with his nieces and nephews; all of us trying to stay strong for one another, comforting one another, wiping each other's tears. The time had come for us, his girls, to say our farewells and I had to go first. It took everything within me not to cry but a few tears slipped out and my voice got stuck in my throat as I thought about all the things he was supposed to help me complete. Prom flashed through my mind, then graduation, our birthdays, college decision day, college move in day. Everything we had talked about doing had been flushed down the drain just months before they were supposed to happen. It wasn't fair to me; it wasn't fair to any of us. We had to go through everything relatively alone, it just wasn't the same without him.
Panic set into my body as I walked up to his casket; this would be the last time I saw him, this would be embedded into my mind for the rest of my life. I slipped my nameplate off tucking it into his pocket next to the cigar my mom had gotten for him; I wanted to be as close to him as I could. I placed my final kiss on his forehead; he was so stiff and cold. My tears slipped down my cheeks onto him as I whispered my final "I love you." into his ear. He was truly gone and reality was just now setting in which sent me into a spiral of emotions. I was angry with God; how could he take him away from me so soon? I was angry with myself; why hadn't I visited him more? Now I'm forced to remember him through pictures and videos but they're just not the same. The sound of his voice has begun to slowly dissipate from my mind, his laugh was soon erased from my memory as well and now I'm just hoping they'll reappear in my dreams to grant me peace.
|| If you read this, thanks for letting me get my feelings out. This is probably irrelevant too but I've forgotten what his voice sounds like and that hurts cause I want to remember it. But everything happens for a reason right?||
