A Family's Eye

Chapter 1, The Funeral

It's a weird feeling, y' know. Watching someone being lowered six feet into the ground. Especially when that person was so dear to so many people around you. It makes you feel numb meanwhile feeling so many emotions you can't even describe it. Sadness, anger, melancholy, confusion, you name it. I was feeling it. Everything feels quiet but so loud at the same time. All you hear is the wind rushing next to your ears, the sobs of the people next to you, and the chirping of birds up in the trees. Normally you see everyone wearing black, it's raining, and everyone is crying in funeral cliches. But today, only that last one was true. The birds were chirping, the wind was soothing, and the day was oddly warm, it being November in Rhode Island. It was as if my father's spirit was trying to keep everyone cheerful. He was a warm person, after all, always trying to make everyone happy.

His death was just so sudden. I had just arrived home after I had gotten off my shift at the bar. I was following my after-work routine of opening the mail I had received whilst checking the answering machine in the kitchen. Flipping through the envelopes and sitting at the kitchen table directly across from the kitchen sink window, I had heard I had one missed call from my mother. Thinking it was just her checking up on me like normal, I paid no mind to it. Bills, coupons, newspaper, the usual mail, but the message from my mother wasn't. Her naturally cheerful tone was now a shaky one. I stopped flipping through the papers and looked out the window. There was nothing but a singular crow looking right at me. I knew exactly what she was about to say.

"Your father just died, Reese."

It feels as if I had just gotten the news minutes ago, but it had actually already been two days. My oldest brother, Hayden, didn't want to hurt my mother by prolonging the funeral. He understood we were all hurting, but my mother was hurting the worst of all of us. Her love of about 35 years had just passed away, after all. We were all glad that she was at least able to say goodbye to him. He was in the hospital for collapsing to the floor. He had been having that problem for a while but didn't want to leave the house just yet. It was when he fell for the third time that week that my sister forced him to go to the hospital. She knew what was going on after. She was a soon-to-be nurse, after all. We found out his heart was rapidly failing. He was 60 and it ran in the family, so it wasn't an unusual discovery. He died in the hospital with my mother at his side the whole time. We were glad he wasn't alone when he passed on.

I was broken out of my trance when I felt a hand placed on my shoulder.

"You count the crows yet?" I heard a voice behind me say. Startled, I whipped my head around.

"Oh my Lord, Peyton, you scared the piss out of me! Thought a ghost had my shoulder for a second there." I said with a shaky tone, gripping my chest. She was the type to do that. Walk-on behind you, and scare you without realizing it. As quiet as a mouse, she was, even though she was around 6'1". Peyton was my older sister. The third of seven kids. I was the fourth. Although, she was different from the rest of us. She was tough but softspoken. She was also the only child in my family that was adopted. We never cared though, she was a lot more like us than anyone would've thought.

"Heh, sorry! You know I don't mean to spook 'ya!-" she said waving her hands as she was apologizing- " I just wanted to ask if you noticed the crows yet. There's ten of 'em. Hopefully they aren't messing with us again," she added with a breathy tone. My family was sort of a superstitious type. We counted crows as a way to tell big events. We were only right about a third of the time, though. Not only did we count crows, but my mother also used sage, we believed in how the moon affected you, and many more things like that. My family derives from a lot of witch, or pagan, culture and beliefs. Although not all of us are pagan, we still believe in these things as they're our family traditions.