"It isn't your fault" my dad told me as he tried to comfort me.
It was my mother's funeral and I was holding my tears back as much as possible. Suddenly I heeded a voice ring through the small funeral home.
"Will the Parker children come to the front of the room?"
As I gradually made my way up the seemingly long and never-ending isle with a small stuffed animal clutched in one hand while my sister squeezed the other. I couldn't stand the sight of my mother's open casket.
I whispered to my brother as quietly as possible, "Will you give her my gift for me?" He nodded his head and took my stuffed toucan. I knew I would regret not getting my mother a better gift, she never liked toucans but it was the closet thing to a penguin that I could find at the last minute. There she was, pale, lifeless. Her curly, black hair was slowly uncurling and fading into gray. I could barley grasp the reality of this scene.
When I thought of when she was still alive I remembered the times when I treated her badly. My mom was so nice to me and she spoiled me but what did I do in return? I treated her like dirt! While my tears pounded at the inside of my eyes, trying to escape I wisped out the door, into the hallway. As I was running down the hallway I had millions of flash backs about the many times my mother has been there for me. But now she's gone, and never coming back. Not for helping me through hard times, not for congratulating me for the good things I've done. Not for anything! My Uncle Jon raced after me and finally, once I ran out of breath and collapsed my the wall he picked me up and hugged me.
He then said, " You don't have to accept it now but eventually it will come back, knocking."
I heard him let out a heavy sigh as I followed him back into the ceremony room. I watched the parade of cars followed the limo with my mother's casket inside. Sitting there on grass I overheard my mom's ex-boyfriend talking to a couple family friends.
"Everybody knows that I'm going to miss her most!" he told them as he let out a fake sob.
I swear I was going to punch his face in but suddenly I felt my sister cry on my shoulder. I noticed that my mother's casket was being lowered into the grave, I couldn't move, couldn't look away. It was paralyzing, this was real life, not a dream. ********** was really gone forever. Though her body isn't still here I can feel her spirit burning with rage while she watches my father kiss my step-mother. I feel her pain, maybe even more than her. I don't know if I'll ever understand why she was taken away from this world, but I do know that she will never be forgotten.