Template:No One Shall Ever See

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Everything’s silent except for the sound of rain pouring down as everyone stares at the ebony coffin. It’s hard to tell what sounds are rain and what are the heavy cries of the guests. My focus is on my black flats on my feet, ruined by the wet, mud-like dirt. Now it’s on my sister who’s standing on my left, holding an umbrella that covers us both. She’s crying. It’s unusual to see her cry so often now. I turn my attention to my right where my mother stands when she takes my hand. Her eyes are locked on the black coffin that stands in front of us all, water hitting the top and slowly running down the sides. I don’t want to look at it. It feels too real when I look at it. The pastor is standing without an umbrella, wearing a suit and all, looking at all of us. He’s speaking, telling the life of someone he didn’t know. The idea is almost funny. His speech sounds blurry. The dripping rain and wails of family and friends seem to flood over him. He sounds like he’s speaking underwater, really. I try to make out his words. I fail. While watching the elderly, strange man speak gibberish, my mother hands me a tissue she took out from her purse, already wettened from the weather. I’m confused at first, knowing I didn’t have to blow my nose. I watch as my sister also takes a tissue and dabs it under her wet, sulken eyes. When I dab the thin, paper-like cloth under my eyes, it instantly soaks in all the salty water it can. I’m crying and I didn’t even realize it. “Mom.” My dad is now in the same spot as the pastor just was, giving his speech. He knew my grandmother more than anyone else. I mean, he was her son. He sounds just as murky as the pastor. I try to make out the words he speak. I want to hear what he has to say. I can’t. My parents both gave me permission to speak. I think they really wanted me to. Though, I refused. It was too hard. I don’t even know if I would be able to write anything. So, yeah, I guess that’s that. Luckily, my parents were supportive of my decision. They’ve been very supportive throughout really. Supportiveness seems important now more than ever. I’m definitely not complaining.

When my dad finishes, everyone’s applauding. I’m applauding, too. Even if I don’t know what he said, I know it was good. My dad has a way with words. He’s a writer, so he might as well be. I look around the room while everyone’s still clapping, noticing more teary eyed faces than before. I think I’m more teary eyed, too. It’s hard to tell. The next few speeches after seem to go fast. My memory of it is like when it’s been a while since I’ve seen a movie so I only remember bits and pieces of it. I only remember fragments. My parents, sister, and I are one of the first people to step aside. My mom holds both my sister and my hand. I’m pretty much too old for it and my sister certainly is, but neither of us care. It’s comforting. Any sort of comfort is good right now.

We stand in the parking lot—my mom, dad, sister, and I—rain still pouring down onto us and our charcoal umbrellas. I feel like I’m taking a breath for the first time in a while. Did I even breath during the burial? I can’t remember. It’s not long until the rest of the guests come out as well. Most of them are family. Family from both sides, but especially my father’s. They all come up to us. I find my grandmother. My other grandmother, on my mother’s side. Before I even can, she hugs me. She knows how I’m feeling, how my entire family is feeling.

“She’s happier now,” she says firstly in a way to try to make me feel better. I don’t feel better. Even if my grandmother’s happier, she’s still not here. “You know that, right?”

I only nod back. What else could I even do?

“I love you so much.”

“You too.”

It isn’t long before people start leaving and my family leaves as well. It’s silent the whole car ride home. My dad, sister, and I are all crying, trying to be quiet about it but failing. It’s hard to mute a cry. My mom is not crying but I can tell she wants to. I think she’s trying to put on a strong face for my dad. I wish she would just cry.

2.

Rosalind Trent was my grandmother’s name. It suited her well. We share the same last name. My name is Amelia Trent. My whole family shares the same last name as her, though. Yet, I still can take pride in it. I also take my love for books from her. I’m the only one in my family who really likes to read, so I think she always appreciated that. I wish I could say we share more things, but I can’t think of any. My sister got lucky though. She and my grandmother look so similar it’s strange. I’m jealous of that. I’ll never admit it though. My grandmother died of cancer. Lung cancer, I think. She stayed with us the entire time she faced it. We were always closest to her. That’s why we were in charge of the funeral. Well, my dad and mom. My sister and I weren’t in charge. We did help, though. We helped with whatever we could. I can’t sleep. I usually can, even the day my sister and I came home from my great aunt’s and found out my grandmother had passed away. I slept that night but I can’t tonight. I’m wearing my grandmother’s ring around my neck, strung through the finger hole with a cheap, short chain. I haven’t taken it off since I’ve received it. Another thing to share with my grandmother. I feel like I’ve been hit by news all over again. The funeral was proof that she’s gone. That she won’t just come up to me and hug me and tell me everything’s alright when it’s really not. I’ll never get that again. From someone else maybe, but it’s not the same. It’s not a hug from Rosalind Trent. It’s not a hug from my grandmother. “Are you up?” a whisper asks from my door. I turn my body and head, both facing the opposite side of my room entrance, to see my sister, Lydia. She’s my older sister and only sister. We have an age difference of two years, Lydia being fourteen and me being twelve. We’ve always been close but it’s been closer than ever these days. Before I can answer, she sits on the edge of my bed. I sit up on my elbows so I can face her. Taking a closer look, I can see she’s crying. She’s cried a lot lately. For most people, someone crying isn’t strange, but it’s different with Lydia. I can’t remember a time she’s ever cried before now. Not even when she sprained her wrist when she was ten. She probably has cried. She definitely has. Though, that’s the thing with Lydia. She likes to keep things in the privacy in her own room. Sometimes I think I don’t know my sister enough. Though, at the same time, I still believe I know her more than anyone.

“Can’t sleep?” I mutter, not audible if someone wasn’t paying close attention. I ask even though I know the answer. Unlike me, I don’t think this is the first night Lydia hasn’t been able to sleep. Sometimes I’ll wake up to hear footsteps that I recognize to be her’s. I know my whole family’s footsteps by heart. I also, one night, heard a cup fall to the floor coming from that same room. Soon after, there came the sound of the recognizable footsteps pass my room and my parents and into the bathroom to get, supposedly, a towel. I kept hearing sounds thirty minutes after until I finally drifted back to sleep. I know very well it doesn’t take thirty minutes to clean up a spill. “Do you think grandma Rose can hear us when we speak or talk to her?” she questions, completely ignoring what I had asked. Grandma Rose is what we’ve called her for as long as I can remember. I think Lydia started calling her that when she was very “Uh, I’m not sure.” I’m not religious. Not yet at least. My mother, father, and (maybe) sister aren’t either. I don’t know what I believe when someone dies. I don’t know if my grandmother can hear me when I sometimes speak to her. I don’t know if she can see me touch her and my ring necklace every time I think of her. I don’t know if she can read my mind and feel the pain I feel. Does she miss me? Can she miss me? “I hope she can.” It stays quiet and still for a while after that. I watch my sister cry some more. Most of the time I would start crying too. I don’t think I’m crying right now. I’m too tired to cry. She went back to her room after. I regret not offering for her to just sleep in here, but I can’t go back now. I fell asleep soon after that. I wonder if Lydia did too.

3.

Grandma Rose had always wanted to travel. She wanted to go so many different places all over the world. I think she planned too, maybe even picked out a few locations. She never did. I think it was because she always was busy. Never found the time before she fell sick.

My whole family hasn’t traveled or gone on some sort of big vacation in a while. Not at all this summer break or the last. Grandma Rose was too sick to come with, or really stay by herself. I guess she could of stayed with someone else in our family. My dad had no siblings, neither did her and her husband has been gone from her life for years, but she had cousins. Even some of my mother’s family had offered for her to stay with them. But, I don’t know. Things just never happened. I think we’ll probably go on a vacation soon. Maybe a beach in the Caribbean surrounded by crystal glass water. Maybe a cabin in the mountains where my dad could teach my sister and I to ski. Anything sounds nice, really.

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I walk down the cobbled path, listening to birds sing from the trees growing out beside and above me. Where the hell am I?