2019-07-18 - Saying Goodbye

It was time for the funeral. Erin wanted to get it over with. More, she wanted to not go because this goodbye was so permanent. They were here to bury her parents. Her Grandmother pulled out all the stops and the church was decorated in full Addington regalia, as if they were royals. Orchids spilled out of pots and there were boisterous displays of other flowers to try and bring some semblance of cheer to the grim day.

Dressed in black, the dress is modest, the heels boosting her already tall height even taller. Her hair is pulled back into a sedate chignon and Erin looked just as she was. A grieving daughter. When she'd entered, she'd gotten swarmed by well wishers who knew what she was going through or who just couldn't imagine what she was going through. Others wondering if there was a serial killer in their midst and wondering if the killer of her cousin had been found. Maybe they meant well but with everything and everyone pressing in on her, she'd felt she was suffocating. She needed desperately to get away.

Catching sight of her grandmother in the front row, Erin had gone to seat herself beside the older woman. The two communicated without a word as Erin's dark gaze fell to the twin caskets at the front of the church. Almost within arms reach. At least fewer would approach her with her grandmother nearby. And if they did, they wouldn't dare bring up murders and family feuds.

It made it at least bearable.

The music playing was chosen mostly by Erin's grandmother, but Erin had gotten to choose a few songs. One of them was playing now. Closing her eyes, she decides to ignore everyone else and just let the grief wash over her, wave after wave. It was almost unbearable.

♫ "I know your life on Earth was troubled. But only you can know the pain. You weren't afraid to face the devil, you were no stranger to the rain. So go rest high on that mountain, son your work on Earth is done. Go to heaven shouting love for the Father and the Son." ♫

Erin sucks in a breath and lifts a hand to wipe her eyes as the tears stream down, she finds a tissue that wasn't there before. Averting her head some, she tries to hide her own weakness from everyone, but the tears keep coming. She'd tried so hard to pretend to be unaffected in front of everyone, but this was her parents. The mother she'd so resembled, the father who always made her laugh each time they spoke on the phone.

♫ "Oh how we cried the day you left us. We gathered 'round your grave to grieve. Wish I could see the Angels faces when they hear your sweet voice sing. So go rest high on that mountain. Son your work on Earth is done. Go to heaven shouting love for the Father and the Son." ♫

If there really was a heaven, Erin hoped her parents went there. If.. so many if's about so many things and no way to know the answer to any of them. The song fades and she manages to find the strength to open her eyes as the eulogy is given. It was something basic really, nothing personalized just for her parents. Mostly because no one knew her parents so well enough to make little personalized stories about them. They'd disappeared when she was younger and just stayed gone.

The old familiar resentment doesn't rear its ugly head this time. Maybe it really was time to say goodbye. Erin was unprepared for the pain that idea brought with it, it was like a gut punch and she has to suck in a breath to try and gather herself.

Then it's time for a poem and while she'd been expecting one she'd not known which it would be. When it's read, she listens...

THE DASH
BY LINDA ELLIS
I read of a man who stood to speak at a funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on the tombstone from the beginning…
to the end.

He noted that first came the date of birth and spoke of the following date with tears, but he said what mattered most of all was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time they spent alive on earth and now only those who loved them know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own, the cars…the house…
the cash. What matters is how we live and love and
how we spend our dash.

The words held such meaning but Erin truly had no idea how her parents had spent most of their dash. Regrets pile in on the guilt that she hadn't tried to get to know them more in her adulthood while they had been alive.

The service continues, more songs are played and suddenly it's time for the congregation to walk to the front, to the closed caskets and say their own goodbyes, then walk by the family members and offer their sympathies. Erin steels herself for this, not wanting pity or sympathy either one. But it comes all the same. She does her best to give some sort of fitting response and then it's their turn to go up. Erin reaches for the two roses she brought, one purple, one red, likely representing the favorite colors of the two, and she gets to her feet, forcing herself to remain steady and not to cry as she places the purple on her mothers and the red on her fathers. A hand is splayed on each and her shoulders shake just a touch as a sob escapes her and she manages to get away to one of the front rooms where she's led to the awning for the burial. There was only so much she could subject herself to and so, with her grandmothers permission she leaves, unable to suffer through it any longer.

Once in her car and away from the church, the volume on her radio is turned to full blast and she squeals tires, trying to outrun her own demons as she heads out of town taking the route her parents had on their way out of town and heading towards Seattle.

Sometimes it was good to just be anonymous in a crowd.