It Wasn't Until Two Days Later,

     On the day of Daddy's funeral, that the harsh reality of everything finally came crashing down all around me.

     He's only sleeping, I told myself as I approached the open casket at the front of the church, hand-in-hand with my mother and my sister.  Mom was quietly sobbing, and Harper kept her eyes fixed on her shiny black patent leather shoes, her soft blonde curls partially hiding her little face as she choked back tears.  She was just five years old; much too young to be going through hell like this.  I just stared numbly up at the carved image of Jesus hanging lifeless on the cross.
  
     He's only sleeping.

     He did appear to only be sleeping.  I almost half-expected his eyes to flutter open and for him to say drowsily, "Hey there, girl.  Wanna go for a walk?  Go get my hiking boots, then."

     My eyes began to well up at the memory of it.  No more nature walks.  I had to wake him up.

     Before I could think about what I was about to do, I gingerly reached into the casket and touched his hand.  I immediately drew back, the bottled-up tears overflowing and streaming down my cheeks.  That wasn't Daddy.  It couldn't be!  The hand...it was so cold.  There was no blood pumping through that hand.  No heart beating inside that body.  It wasn't Daddy, was it?  One last glance at him confirmed my darkest fears. 

     It was.

     The rest of that day was a blur.  I can only recollect certain details.  Running away from the casket as fast as I could, down the aisle and out the door.  Hearing gasps, sobs from the crowd of people seated on either side of the hysterical eight-year-old just trying to escape the inevitable.  Collapsing in tears in the churchyard.  Harper coming out and lying down beside me to comfort me, now crying herself.  Blackness.

     Watching the men lower the casket, lower my Daddy, down into the darkness of the six-foot hole.  Mom kneeling down beside the temporary marker where his tombstone would later be placed, still in tears, and dropping a single red rose into the abyss with him.  Clutching their wedding picture to her chest.  Blackness.

     Waking up later that day, in my bed.  Hearing Mom crying across the hall in her bedroom.  Knowing that nothing could be done now.  It had finally hit me.

     Daddy was gone.

     Blackness.