Parallels
Friday, April 14, 2006
Today is the funeral. The sky is heavy with the weight of dense grey clouds. The rain pulls them closer to the earth, as if seeking comfort from the storm itself.I can't help but see the similarities between today and the day we buried mom.
Only on that day, the weather was the last thing on my mind.
The funeral was not exactly what my mother would have liked, but, being in a fog, I was not in the best shape to make too much of a fuss with my sister on these issues. I remember cringing during the service as this person from my sisters faith who never knew my mother went on and on in what seemed to be an endless litany of bullshit.
People I had never met where there. People from her past that never forgot her. They filed past with condolences and memories pouring off their lips. I didn't cry. I'm not sure why. It was as if my emotions where this dry streambed that hadn't seen rain in years.
As we walked to the graveside Heaven opened up it's gates and the rain poured down. Clouds swollen and pregnant with showers hovered over us, spilling out their contents atop the mourners at the grave site. It's funny how I can't feel the cold, how the dampness is just an abstract state of being not really connected to me. Sounds continually come in and out of hearing. It reminds me of a child's game I played, putting my fingers in my ears and then taking them out, making people go from mute to volume, to mute again. The day is surreal in my memory, an impressionists version of a funeral with colors bleeding down the canvas and the images slightly out of focus.
I've been to funerals since and they haven't been able to populate that dry barren river bed that lies inside me, this time is different.
I can feel the flood pressing against the gate, I'm just the little Dutch boy with my finger in the dyke and I know it's only a matter of time before there are just too many holes to plug.
Maybe this is a good thing, this breaking down of walls, I only wish the process of removing the pieces were not so painful.
link | posted by Kara at 4/14/2006 08:25:00 AM
2 Comments:
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Michelle had this to say:
So sorry about your loss. It seems appropriate to me that the weather is grey and stormy when there's a funeral. I'll be thinking of you today.
Here via Michele. Take care.- 9:57 AM, April 14, 2006
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had this to say:
I know what you mean. I've had a lot of loss in the last fews years of family members. I have a sidebar categoy...losing a loved one...because I've written a lot about it. I guess we are still meeting and greeting via michele?
- 10:51 AM, April 17, 2006
