"Great, it's fucking raining again." I mumble to myself as I peer through the broken slits in the  blinds.  I dig through the bin of shoes to find the only rain boots I owe, pink with green frogs.  "These are suiting for a funeral, right?" I sarcastically joke to my boyfriend from the doorway.  The first words I have spoken to him all morning. Things have been rough between us since my mother called last week. He has always been the type of man that is a calm, comforting presence to my chaotic ups and downs.  But this not the type of situation he is equip for.

I do not wait for him to say anything, I just leave with a slam the door.

As I grab the large handles of the oak door and step out of the rain, I am immediately engulfed in a swarm of limbs, tangled hair, and coarse, black fabrics.  I carefully fight my way out of the embrace and find myself face to face with one of the countless, unfamiliar people I will encounter over the next two hours. Running make-up, tear stained cheeks, she slurs apologies, questions, stories. This went on and on for what felt like an entire lifetime. Stories and memories I was trying to suppress, filling my head over and over again.

As the circle of strangers began to break up, I meekly smile up at my cousin by marriage's step daughter, slid her unnaturally cold hands off my bare shoulder, and slipped off down a corridor and into a dark, empty classroom. I lock the door, find a safe hiding place behind some filing cabinets and collapse into them and onto the cold cement floor.

This floor is the most comforting, sympathetic thing I have come across all week.  I press my body against it, let the surface submerge the exposed sections of my skin to the harsh cold. My heart is beating so fast I cannot breath.  "Calm down, breath.."  I mutter, as I try to fight off another panic attack. I said my piece weeks ago, in that gloomy hospice bedroom.  She was not conscious, but she heard me, I know it.

I held her frail, anemic hands and told her about my life in this desolate town, my shitty job, how hard I am working to get out of this place. I told her about my future plans, my simple wedding in the woods in my mother's wedding dress and white daffodils in my hair, how much I loved this man she would never meet.  I told her that I hope to have two children,  how I hoped I do as well as my parents did, and how I planned to do many things better than them. I thanked her for Sunday School classes, countless meals of Mac & Cheese with tapioca pudding, gardening lessons, and introducing me to vinyl. I put my hands over her heart, I told her how sorry I was she was alone, that I should have visited more often. How it was not fair her soul mate died so young.  I told her she inspires me every day, that I loved her more than I could allow myself to show. 

Then I left.

During the funeral, I listen to speeches by family members who had never been there for her.  Prayers and memories shared by a priest that never met her.  A Deacon that could not pronounce her name. I watch kids play on the floor and teens play on their phones. The services comes to an end and the hungry masses filed into the cafeteria for free food.

Soon, it is just me.  I sit with her, become comfortable with the silence. Without realizing, I begin to tell her how sorry I am that this was her final show.  I tell her how I would have done it differently, decked the place out in red and white poppies, and how I stole one of her pictures from the photo album, because she looked so beautiful, elegant, alive.  I told her not to hold it against boyfriend for not being here. He just does not know death like we do.  I told her about the emptiness Ive been feeling. How I wake up every morning in tears or take breaks at work to have panic attacks in the bathroom. I asked her how I could possibly get up and move on from this.  But of course, she had no answers for me this time.