Lovely Wisdom

I started thinking about my mother again. She died when I was ten in a car crash and it sounded horrible by the way my father described it to me. I didn't go to her funeral because my dad gave me the choice. I wanted to remember her when she was alive and bubbly, not cold and...not alive. I only went to the memorial service where the casket was sitting there, closed.

I was only ten, but I knew a lot about death. It never really bothered me before until she was taken away from me. When my father told me she died, I didn't grasp it at first until I burst into tears and he cradled me in my arms as if I was a baby. Up to the day of the funeral, I stayed in my bedroom, not bothering to look at any photographs of her or even dare to look in the mirror, because I looked too much like her. I stayed at my baby-sitter's house during the funeral until my dad picked me up to go to the memorial service.

People were either in tears or they looked like they were in shock. I'm not sure who took it harder: my grandparents, my mother's sisters, or my father. I just sat there and stared at the casket, silently asking myself, "Is she really in there?" I wanted to walk over there and open it to just find out if she was, but I resisted. After that, my aunts and their husbands hugged my father and I, but I knew some of them looked at me and wanted to cry because of my resemblance to her.

When we got home, I went straight to my room and searched for my photo albums. I looked at her pictures: her holding her redheaded newborn, her standing behind me as she pushed me on the swing set we used to have, the family portrait of all three of us, and many others. I found the photo of her when she was ten and then I searched for the photo of me on my tenth birthday. I put them side-by-side, looking at the similarities in both of us. We looked so much alike, it would've been hard to tell us apart if it weren't for the hair.

She was a brunette and I had my father's red hair.

I left the photos there and walked around the house to find my father. He was sitting on the sofa, looking at the screen of our television. He was watching their wedding video that my grandmother had recorded. I looked at the screen too and saw my mother in the white wedding dress and Vail that looked beautiful on her as my father leaned in and kissed her. My eyes flickered to him.

He looked vulnerable and messed up, his bright blue eyes glistening. A tear rolled down his freckled cheek and fall after it reached his jawline. His lips were moving slowly as if he was talking to himself, but it was only one word that he repeated over and over again. "Katherine," my mother's name.

I sat down next to him on the sofa and wrapped my arms around him. He hugged me back and held me tightly for dear life. "Daddy," I whispered as I felt myself on the edge of crying. "Is she really gone?"

He didn't say anything at first. He just brushed his fingers through my hair and kissed the top of my head. Finally, he whispered, "No, honey. She's not. She'll always be with us."

I hid my face in his shirt and cried.

"Athena?" Gerard's voice woke me up from my flashback. "A-are you all right?"

I forgot I was still at school. I was so wrapped up in the memory of my mother. I felt my eyes burning as I turned to look at my best friend's face. His hazel eyes looking into my green eyes desperately; he knew when I was going to cry. He knew how I felt about my mother.

I tried to blink away the tears, but was unsuccessful. "No," I choked out. "I'm not." I could feel the tears fall over the surface of my eyes.

Gerard reached over and put his thumb underneath my eye, softly brushing away the liquid. I fell forward and my forehead hit his shoulder. He put his arms around me in a sympathy hug and rubbed my back a little. "Shh..." he whispered. "Shh..."

I could feel someone was watching us, but I didn't care. I just wanted Gerard to hold me until I could stop crying.

He gives the best hugs.