Rites of Passage

I stood outside the church's old wooden door, giving each guest a small smile and shaking their hands as they walked on, inside the century-old building. The sky was darker, a grey-blue color, one or two clouds hovering above, no rain, but no sun. I'm not sure what I expected, but I think maybe I expected a duller day than this, after all, it was my great aunt's funeral.

I looked across at the other side of the door and saw Harleen carrying out the same job as me; greeting guests, shaking their hands, sending them on in. She had a tear in her brown eyes, but contained the emotion as best she could. I sniffed in the cold air, feeling it hit me like a thousand sharp knives. I was still grieving, I'd been close to my great aunt. We both had.

The people attending the funeral got less and less as the building got fuller and fuller, eventually leaving Harleen and myself outside.

I shuffled over to her, in my knee-length black dress and chunky black sandals, and placed a hand on her shoulder. She tore her eyes from the ground and stared at me.

"Hey," she smiled meekly. I engulfed her in a hug before parting the embrace.

"Hey. You okay?" I asked, my voice tinged with concern.

"Yeah... I mean, I can't believe she's actually gone." She took a breath in, swallowing down oxygen.

"I know, neither can I. Come on though, we should go in now," I told her. I linked my arm through hers and we made our entrance, as brave as we could appear.

Inside, the place was decorated with lilies, an odd vase of orchids in the corner, a photo of great aunt Laura on her beautiful closed white coffin, with gold paint around the edges of the lid. She was a very pretty woman, her milky skin contrasting her dark hair, complete red lips, and dark eyes. In that photograph, she was twenty seven, and the year was nineteen hundred and thirty three.

Harleen and I sat down in the two remaining seats at the front of the hall, and I nodded at the lady holding the ceremony. She had blonde hair, wore a long white dress, and had a goblet of gold in front of her, with a candle and small length of white-gold rope.

"Dear guests, family and friends, we are gathered here today to commemorate the passing of a wonderful woman, a beloved great aunt, and devoted friend to many." Tears strayed down my face as I stared at the coffin containing her body. Harleen was crying loudly, but in a regular pattern, taking one breath then choking out tears, then breathing again a couple more times. The lady picked up the rope, twisted it to fit in the goblet, then lowered it in, a typical Wiccan ceremony.

That's what my great aunt had always wanted at her funeral, "Send me off by means of my religion, will you?" she'd asked me. "Like all your ancestors, the Wiccan ones. That's how I want to go." I hadn't ever understood how she could cherish a religion so much, but she had told me it was in her blood, in our blood, the next ones. I never paid any attention to it, just agreed to hold a Wiccan ceremony for her funeral, not wishing to think of it at the time.

I put my attention to the woman at the table just feet away from the coffin again, watched as she lowered her mouth to the candle, then cupped her hand round the flame to stop it spreading, and blew it out. I wiped tears away with a tissue and looked briefly down at my legs, then looked up as men went toward the coffin, lifted it up, and carried it to the back door, and outside to the grave dug for the box. Everyone filed out there, and the final stage of her funeral took place.