Funeral

I’d never known anybody to die before.  In a strange way, the day was like an adventure.

We stood in the tiny churchyard, all cramped together.  My mother held my hand tight, her fingers long, cold and bony, crushing my own.  I winced in pain, but she didn’t notice, her grey eyes stared aimlessly into the distance.

I looked around the graveyard, clusters of black gathered near the hearse.  There was so much black it was depressing, just the way funerals are meant to be.
The hearse doors opened and the coffin was lifted out.  My dad and my uncles, the strongest men, balanced the coffin on their shoulders.  They walked towards the church doors slowly, a look of sheer determination on their faces.  The coffin was heavy, I could see it in their faces but they were trying desperately to hide it, out of respect I guessed.

We walked painfully slow behind them and I wondered why they couldn’t just hurry up and get inside, why did they have to put everyone through all the tension?  A few people had already started crying, I could hear them trying to muffle their sobs.

We walked all the way to the front of the church where the vicar stood with a remorseful look on his face.  How could he feel sorry for us, for my grandmother, when he didn’t even know us?  My mother forced me into the pew on the left side, sitting me down roughly.

He started to say something about laying ‘’our sister’’ to rest.  What was he talking about?  She was my grandmother, not my sister.  Then the organ started playing a dark depressing melody and everybody stood up to sing.  My mother’s hand seized my wrist and pulled me to my feet.  She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.  I could still hear people sniffling, but then wails followed.  Somebody was crying so much they had to leave the church.  I didn’t know who they were, there were so many people here I’d never met.

The service continued, fake attempts at singing negative hymns, readings, memories, except nobody could hold it together long enough to get all the way through their speeches.

After the service, the coffin was carried out at the same painfully slow speed and taken to the graveyard.  Anybody who had managed to hold off tears broke down as soon as they saw the ready dug grave where my grandmother would finally lie, apart from me.  My mother turned to glare at me, the first time she’d looked at me in hours, and her eyes bore through me.

‘’Why aren’t you crying?’’ she asked me, her voice barely more than a whisper.  I didn’t answer; I hung my head as she turned hers away.

The coffin was lowered into the grave, and people tossed flowers on top as they tearfully said their last goodbyes.  The vicar closed the service and left us alone, crowds of people paying their last respects before dispersing.  Some came to talk to my mother, tell them how sorry they were for her loss.  I was completely ignored, a spare part kept in line by my mother’s sharp grasp.

We waited until everyone had left the graveyard before my mother went anywhere near the grave.  Silent tears slid down her face as she looked at her mother’s final resting place.  She turned to me, an expectant look on her face.  She shook her head and finally let my hand go from her grip, before turning her back on me and storming away.

I’d never known anybody that had died before, I’d never know what funerals would be like.