Loving Lakyn | ✓

[50] Don't Be Childish

L O V I N G
L A K Y N

TODAY IS ONE of the days that I have been dreading since the moment that I realized death was an actual thing. Like all children, I realized at one point that we do not just live on forever. Our existence is finite. Though, I never thought that this day would come so soon, in fact, I thought that by the time that this day came, I would have a family of my own to support me.

On this gloomy day, I attended my mother's funeral. 

Fifteen days it has been since her passing and it still has not gotten easier in the slightest. April is near coming to a close, preparing to welcome May, and I could not be any more excited. This month has been the month I have experienced thus far. Every year I know that when April breezes by, it will now hold a significant weight that it did not carry before.

I have never attended a funeral before, surprisingly. I have lost so much in my life time, but none physical. I have lost myself, my happiness. But until my mother, I have never lost an actual person and had it impact me this much.

There is a term that we learnt in English, it was used in a book of which I fail to recall for it was terribly boring. The term is ambiguous loss. Ambiguous loss is a form of loss that occurs without closure or clear understanding. This kind of loss leaves a person searching for answers, and thus complicates and delays the process of grieving, and often results in unresolved grief.

I feel as though my entire life I have experienced this. Always loosing things, but still having them there. It sounds anomalous, losing something and having it right in front of you. But throughout my life, I have always felt this immense amount of pressure on top of me. Not knowing when or if my mother will return, not knowing if she will stay, this time. I always mourned her absence, but felt nothing but anxious when she was present.

I grieved as though she was dead all along, when in reality, she was always here, but it was not here anymore. It was someone else. Someone unrecognizable.

I am aware that funerals usually have close family and friends. I arrived with Lakyn expecting to see my father. Maybe my aunt Ester and my cousin Havyn. The Rivers' and the Hale's. But it appeared that half of the town came.

Hale arrived with his father. Eden arrived with Sam and Mr. Rivers. Of course, my mother's few friends whom she has not seen in years came. Some of my fathers' co-workers from Mckinsey's. Other than them, everyone else was unrecognizable. It seems as though my father sent the invitations to everyone within a close proximity and an attractive surname.

The Roson's even came, though I am not too shocked by that considering my father—and Hale—practically forced the idea upon them that my mother was suffering from cancer.

It really does suck that people are only here to look good. And it is even worse that my father only invited people so that he could guilt-trip them into working for his business in some way. Or you know, the typical gifts of pity.

I prepared a speech, how could I not? I would be stupid not too. But I found it hard to know what to say. I wrote it in advance, of course, because no amount of depression will rid of my extreme organizational and preparational skills. I started by being sad, claiming that I missed her and quite honestly, there is part of me that will never forgive her for what she did. But then I realized that dead or alive, her death should be private. She should be able to rest easy knowing that people still think of her as the person that she was before all of this.

Then I erased all of that and began again. The eulogy was short because, truthfully, I had not much to say. All I could say was that I love her and I will continue to do so forever. I said that I hope she is not hurting anymore. I said that I hope she will watch over me when I need her.