It Was All So Surreal

I stood there in the middle of a murmuring crowd staring at the picture boards before me. I couldn’t concentrate on them and I just kept staring at the man in them. He was my former husband that had given me a daughter all those many years ago.

Slowly I realized she was saying my name, “Mom, Mom…” I turned to look at her. She pointed to a picture on a board behind me. It was her dad’s high school graduation picture.

“I’m not happy with that board at all. The pictures keep curling. I have re-taped them but it doesn’t help.”

“Just leave them, no one will really notice or care.” I said without any emotion in my voice. I glanced around the crowd and noticed clumps of people talking about mundane every day things. No one really noticed the box up front that held the cremated remains of a man who’s life was cut short by cancer.

There was talk of the crops, the flowers that were bunched around the front of the funeral home chapel with the chatter of upcoming vacations plus that fact that school was starting soon. There was a child sniffling somewhere and the water cooler gurgled as someone pressed it into service. Circulating among the mourners was a young man in a three piece black suit. He was the son of the funeral director and was simply making sure all the cups were picked up and the folders were present. He checked to make sure the pen was still with the guest book and no one had made off with the clear acrylic box that held all the cards the attendees had dropped in it.

Slowly I grew aware of the people around me and the fact they had names and I knew them. It was the ones who had been the family I married into at one time and I needed to talk to them so I could justify the sadness that overwhelmed me. Turning I made my way through the carefully constructed knots of those that had come to offer their condolences never thinking many of them would hug me and whisper how sorry they were of my recent loss. The loss of my son to cancer. They understood and knew the depths of my grief. His siblings identified with my daughter who had lost not only her father but had also lost a brother not long ago. I had forgotten how loving and giving this family could be at times like this. It felt good to be surrounded by a family that treated me as one of their own again.

Gradually I made my way to his widow. The woman that had shared the last thirty-some years with him and had given him two sons. This gracious person had taken my daughter into her heart and treated her as one of her own. For that I had always been grateful. A friendship had quietly developed between us and now we hugged as old friends and allies. She was pleased I had come and we talked softly of the days she would face when the grief would become real. We were just women sharing the pain of grief in a sea of others that talked of the ordinary every day happenings.

As time drifted on, I knew it was time to leave. I still had tomorrow to face and the fact the crowd would most likely be larger. Saying a quick goodbye I slipped out the door and walked to my vehicle avoiding the puddles from the recent rain. The sun was out and the shining leaves gave way to the clear air that surrounded me.

I had outlived an former husband. Something I never had given a thought to but somehow I felt my own mortality a bit more keenly. Cancer had been my nemesis this summer and I was tired of burying his victims. I certainly hoped this was the end of his reign.