It was a bleak day, one of those days that wasn't cold nor was it hot. There were some clouds in the sky and the sun was trying to poke through. We had all gathered here for the same reason. We didn’t know everyone, but we knew some. We greeted those that we did know with an inert greeting, we tried to have a genial conversation, but the effort was too hard. So we stood back and waited.
Finally it was time to head indoors. None of us wanted too we all stood back that second more. But we needed to go in. The first thing that hit me was the smell of fresh flowers the sweetness was magnificent. The first thing I thought of, was the report recently that stated that flowers were loosing their scent, well maybe if they (who ever they are), were here and could smell the sweetness in the air they would think twice. I walked in and took my seat at the back, I wanted to hide. I didn’t want to be here, I shouldn’t be here now, and it was too early too be here. I was noticed by someone and ushered towards the front. I wanted to plead not to make me, but I knew I couldn’t. My heart was screaming out don’t make me; don’t make me, but my feet followed on to where I was placed.
I heard a familiar song; I knew it well normally I would have broken out in song singing along with it, but today the tears rolled down my checks. I finally looked up and stared to the front of the room. Side by side two white caskets lay. One the size of an adult for Tina, the other so tiny and small for her unborn child for the little girl who never had the chance to become a women.
I stare at them unable to look away, there lays my best friend, someone I will never be able to ring and talk too, someone I will never be able to meet up and have a coffee or drink with, someone who I will never be able to share her joy with as we watched her child grow up. I stare at the small casket, for a child that was never born, for a child to never have the joy of knowing how much she is loved, to learn everyday, to experience all that is available to them. To taste ice cream, to play in the rain, to play in the mud, to feel the sand in her toes, to play in the ocean or pool, to feel the sun on her skin, to kiss her first boyfriend, to love. All the simple things that we do every day have been taken away form her.
I look across at Tina’s husband, to a man that was strong and confident, I see his body is there, but his soul is lost. I cry for him as much as I cry for Tina and her baby. I worry that he will never be able to over come this, I know I should comfort him, I know I should give him my shoulder to cry on, but my strength has gone from me.
Friends get up and talk about Tina and their time together, most of them speak about the fun and happy times, the joy that she brought with her, the way she would light up a room when she walked in. Her laughter, her caring side, her beauty but most of all because she was Tina the person we loved.
I had prepared to get up and say something, and I so wanted to let everyone know who she was to me, and how much she meant to me, but the strength that I had seemed to disappear, my throat dried up, and the tears just kept falling. I didn’t even have the strength to stand up. So aided I was sat back down and the celebrant read my eulogy.
The rest of the service was a blur to me, and then it was the end. Tina’s husband was held up by his brothers as they took him out, followed by her family. Then everyone else left as I sat there, staring at the two white caskets.
God they glared at me, the starkness, the whiteness, they looked bare, except for the brightly coloured flowers that sat on top.
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