My mom, Reed, and I drive down to the airport to pick up my eldest brother, Rhodes. He moved across the country after getting married. He seems iffy with happiness about this. I know he wants to be with his new family. But we as an entire family, especially my mom’s side are very close. So it is hard to move so far away. I am thinking about joining him out that way for college though. There is an amazing photography school out that way, that has a lot of geeky people like me there that attend. But my mom doesn’t like the area. It is located in a not-so-safe area. Lots of robberies, murders, and tempts to steal powers, but then so many like me attend and the college students’ statistics for being about of the senseless violence is minimal.
We don’t talk about much on the way down. We make it down and find him. He hugs Mom first, then me. Finally, my two brothers shake hands, and not saying much to one another. Just empty greetings to make Mom happy. They rarely got along since their teen years. We go get his luggage off the belt and make our way out to the car. Mom drilling Rhodes about her grandbabies. At least that is a happy topic, I guess. Still full of life, and fun. I miss them.
We start the long ride back home, sometimes talking about memories of Dad. Most of theirs are different from mine. There is a large age gap between my brother and I. So the fun things they are remembering about are things I was not even born for. When Dad was still young, healthy, and full of energy. Most of my memories are singleton with just Dad and me. Which I know they are jealous of anyways. But it does still kind of suck listening to all this stuff they did as kids, and never having that experience with them all.
Soon the boys start arguing over what is theirs now. Jesus, Mom is still here. She ain’t dead. It is all hers! Not anyone else's. What is wrong with them? Mom breaks them up and basically says what I just thought. I don't intervene because it would just be more arguing from me being the youngest, what do I know, yada yada.
Mom pulls over and has me switch driving with her. The boys whine about how they’re going to die if their little sister is going to drive them home. Mom glares at them. Too soon fools. I roll my eyes. Everyone is silent on the way back home.
The next day we go to the funeral home to start prepping for the funeral. Yick doesn’t cover how disgusting it feels to be sold to during a person's grieving process. Oh, yay, Aunties and Grandma are here too. For people who don’t seem to even like him you all seem to come prepared to get things your way. Ugh! We all sit down at the table: my mom, brothers, aunts, grandma, and myself.
“He needs a casket too, even if he is being burned. He needs to be blessed by a priest too. For he can move on,” states my Aunt like she’s the boss in the room.
“Dad wasn’t even religious. We don’t need that stuff. He wouldn’t care about that kind of stuff,” replies Rhodes as Mom shakes her head.
“It’s fine, we can do that,” she states as glares at us, her children, to shut up.
The three of us look at each other confused because we know the only person who wanted a traditional funeral is Reed. She just lets them do what they want and then she will foot the bill. It’s not right. The rest of the time we don’t provide too much feedback as we are shot down by the elders. Ridiculous, why are we even here, if we get no input anyway?
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
I thought the Reaper would show up today but he didn’t. He’ll be there for the funeral I am sure of it.
Today is the today. A final goodbye to a previous vessel. I perfected my make-up to try not to let myself cry during the long day that I knew I would be facing today. I let some deep breaths in and out slowly as I tried to mentally prepare myself for all the talking, socializing, and emotions. The touching and talking to people are the worst part of the process. I grit my teeth and head down to the car.
Sure enough we just barely got here and the place was already filled with people, some I know, some I don’t but pretend I do. Smiling fake smiles, pretending I want to be here, thanking these people for coming to my father’s funeral. It seems all so stupid. Oh thank you for coming to see my dead father’s vessel, and trying to tell me it’s okay, it’s a better place. If it is such a better place, maybe you could join him and stop touching me. Why can't we just stay home…
It’s time for everyone to sit, and listen to some Godly person talk about my father like he knew the man. But he did not. He never met him. Just some stupid bullshit that was not even correctly fed to him by the evils, aunties, and grandma. Disgusting. Mom’s right though… He would have just told them it was fine. If that is what made all happy. That it wasn't worth the energy and everyone needed to find peace with the situation. If it is not hurting anyone, it’s fine. But it hurting… It hurts so much, Daddy… Listening to garbage, all the touching… GOD the touching… All the fake people here, it hurts… Knowing am NOT going to feel your warm embrace, your protection, to see you again, Daddy all that hurts so much…
I feel the tears swelling up in my eyes. I try so hard not to release the tears. I just want to be alone… I dab my eyes with a tissue before they get a chance to destroy my perfectly, painted face. Rhodes gently pants my back, knowing I am just trying to hold back emotions until I can be alone. We begin to stand for the people to walk by us and say whatever they think will be comforting… and he looks at me and leans over to whisper “Your face is still beautiful, frog leg lover.”
I start laughing, now with everyone starting, because who laughs at a point in time like this? “You know it was chicken, it was not frog.”
“Hey, look it's not my fault you stole and ate all my frog legs,” he smirks back.
I give him a roll eye, sigh, and shake my head in disagreement. He still continues to smirk. I missed him. He’s a clown, but he always had a way to make me feel better.
People start giving us hugs, shaking hands, and saying things such as “I’m so sorry for your loss, blah blah.” And some of the more handsy family members are trying to inappropriately touch and kiss you… Boundaries people, boundaries. Ugh, Great Uncle Fred is next… He’s the worst of them all! Dread starts in as I start to position myself to make it hard for him to do his normal Hi/Bye routines. Maybe it’s an old male thing, but it’s just weird. I see some weird shadows swirling about, it’s not shadows that are supposed to be there. The Reaper is here.