Mourn

Tonight was the one year anniversary of your death, grandmother. I lied on my bed, preparing myself to rest for the night, but sleep wouldn’t come to me. Restless, I let my thoughts wandered around. I thought about your death, and the way it haunted me.

When it first came to me, I felt nothing, nothing at all. I wasn’t sad, I wasn’t hurt, nor did I felt the numbness that was supposed to come in the stage of shock. None, zero, nada. I had merely brushed it off as if it was about some insignificant gossip.

The sky expressed my feelings, at least, what I should be feeling. Rain fell like tears. I forgot was it drizzle or was it heavy rain, nor did I care. All I could recall was thick clouds that pained the sky gloomy grey. Wind howled without mercy, along with the blurry memory of flashes of lightning and booming thunder. It was like a scene out of some movie, except I didn’t mourn for the lost. As I’d said: there was nothing.

Or was I emotionless? I didn’t know, nor did I want to know.

But it did came, the sadness and sorrow. It seeped through slowly penetrating into my heart without my notice until it had completely filled my heart. Then, I was broken, shattered, and torn into pieces. The water works didn’t cease, it couldn’t stop. I’d cry and cry, till I could no longer breathe and my body numb.

Everything came to me. Despair, sadness, emptiness…even now, I couldn’t fully comprehend you were someone I would never see again. I was hoping this was a mere dream and I would wake someday, somehow. I held onto this belief, yet I was wholly awake, aware that this was indeed the reality.

I kept telling myself I could get over it, that this did not affect me. Yet, who could explain the involuntary tears kept streaming down whether there was rain, when I thought of you, when I walked into the empty home you once resided in.

Dammit, now my pillow was wet, stained with salty tars. I had to turn to the other side. You knew how much I hated to face the door when I sleep because I never feel safe if I wasn’t by the wall.

Remember how you used to stay by my side and tuck me to bed? How you’d never leave until I started snoring and say incoherent words. Now that you were gone, I was alone in the silent nights. Father and mother were too busy; they didn’t have the time to continue where you had left. I had to adapt to the new routine, and I had to be lying if I said I didn’t miss you.

Perhaps things wouldn’t have turn out like this if I had cared more for you. I could have prevented your death, but you would have hated me, right? I smiled grimly at the thought.
Maybe you wouldn’t admit it, yet I knew. Wasn’t that the reason you jumped and ended your life? You had chosen this path, so I couldn’t interfere with it. Thought that never relieve me from the guilt I was drowning in. they told me it wasn’t my fault, that I couldn’t had stopped you anyway. I kept telling myself that too, but one could never deceive oneself.

Great, I groaned. Now my entire pillow and some parts of the bed and blanket were wet, my head ached like someone slammed a bottle against it, and my breath came out uneven and ragged. Calm down, calm down. Tomorrow morning, my eyes were going to be blood-shot and my nose like Rudolph. How was I going to explain to mum that I had cried another night away? I rolled back to the right side, staring at the starry sky before I closed my eyes.