Funeral

It is the afternoon of your funeral and they are lowering you further and further into the ground, into the gaping mouth of fresh earth. I can picture your face behind the heavy wood of your coffin, grinning in the dark as though it were a game of hide and seek and you'd tucked yourself away where no one would find you. We are a sea of black shoes, dresses, tights, shifting uncomfortably. For once, the skies are clear and it's warm enough not to need a sweater. If you had your way, it would be pouring rain, weather as miserable as the mourners swarming over you, raindrops carving our mascara into dark holes around our eyes. But it is not raining and the grass is lush and green, supple enough to still stand up straight once we have moved on to the temptation of food at your wake. The grass is not dead and dry, trampled by our heavy shoes as you would have wished. I can hear children laughing somewhere in the woods surrounding the cemetery, playing along in your imaginary game. Their laughter sounds out of place in our silence, echoing off the perfect blue sky. My skin is pale but I am too tired of crying to shed more tears, simply stair straight ahead as dirt is shoveled back on top of you. It's not the funeral you would have imagined but you'll be glad to know that my shoes have given me one horrible blister. It hurts.