Discovering Sarah

The Service

"Are you sure you want to go to the service? that was pretty rough" Clara asked as Sarah stepped out of the room.

"I'm even more sure now than I was before" Sarah answered her voice full of determination.

"OK then lets go" The Doctor said giving Sarah a strange look as he tried to work out how she was feeling and how she was coping but as usual his daughter gave him no clue which made him wonder if it was just the two women in his life that were so hard to figure out or was it all females, he was pretty sure his past companions weren't this hard.

The funeral was being held in the funeral home in the little chapel place just down the hall. It was filled with about 30 different rows of wooden pews. vases of flowers were scattered about the room as if they would help to make the grieving family and friends feel better, it saddened Sarah to see them though because she knew Liam would have hated the flowers he had bad hay fever and always complained about flowers making it worse. The chapel was empty except for a man stood at the front who must by the one conduction the funeral and 4 people in the front row they must have been Liam's parents and brother and sister,

They had their back to Sarah as they sat down in the very back row but Sarah could see that his sister had the same shade of blonde hair as Liam did and his Dad had the same build as Liam although his hair was completely grey with a large bald patch on top of his head and Sarah could just make out the end of the legs of his glasses sticking out from behind his ear. Sarah could see his mothers shoulders shaking and noticed her reach a tissue up to her eyes, she must have been crying. Sarah's heart broke for the woman who had never done anything wrong but because of Sarah's actions had lost her son. It took everything she had not to walk up to the woman and tell her how sorry she was but she knew that right now was not the time. Right now the woman needed to grieve for her son.

The door's behind them opened and two undertakers who looked to be in their late 40's early 50's came into the room pushing the coffin down the isle on what reminded Sarah of one of those tea service trolleys that her Gran used to have. The man who was stood at the front went over to the other two men and between them they lifted the coffin up onto the alter. Seeing the coffin closed brought back memories from her own Gran's funeral as well as her mother's and it reminded Sarah of how much she had lost. Her Gran, Mum, James, Wyatt and now Liam. She could live to be thousands of years old how many times would she have to face this loss again? Sarah looked to Clara beside her and realised that one day she would have to say goodbye to her best friend and suddenly she felt like she couldn't breathe properly. Sensing her discomfort Clara reached out and took Sarah's hand in hers squeezing reassuringly.

The officiator starting talking halting any more of Sarah's thoughts as she tried to pay attention to what he was saying.

"Liam Evans loved his family dearly and I know he would be so glad to see his dear Mother sat here today, Liam doted on his mother he was described as a real Mummy's boy by everyone who knew him, he would have done anything for Marigold. He was also incredibly close to his Grandfather who sadly passed when Liam was 21 the grief of which led to many of his bad choices in life but today isn't the day to remember Liam for that today we remember the teenage boy who carried his sister Alice 3 miles to the hospital because she broke her leg learning to roller skate. We remember the kind man who donated 10% of his company profits to different charities every year"

Sarah tried to listen to the man's speech about Liam's life but she found her mind wondering off the time she knew Liam.

Flashback
15 year old Sarah was sat on her bed working on her English homework "Write a 3 page essay on your family life" She had been sat staring at the empty sheet of paper for 20 minutes now, how on earth was she supposed to do this? she couldn't write the truth but she also couldn't make the whole thing up, she had no idea how a normal family works. Sarah was contemplating not doing the homework and telling her teacher she lost it or something when Liam opened her bedroom door.