A Mother's Brief Words On Death

She lay there on the altar, hands folded and resting on Her waist. I couldn't look at Her and not flash back to earlier in the day when I looked upon him laying there in the casket. One major difference I noted immediately was that the cosmetics had given him some life-like coloring, where She was pale, nearly to a point of transparency. I felt a chill rising from the underground lake at my back and the air was damp and cold.

"I even effect the atmosphere in here." I commented out loud, as I noted that the normally bright and sparkling jewels were steady and muted, lending a soft and unintrusive light, again much like the funeral parlor I had been in. I looked again at Her folded hands and unchanging expression, and I could feel the pain again. I wondered if, with the effect I had on everything else I could effect the environment just a touch and the altar would turn into a casket.

"If you could, what purpose would that serve?" Her voice asked me as Her lips did not move. "I am not dead, am I?"

"That you are not." I responded. While I knew this to be an obvious truth, a part of me wanted to walk up and touch Her. As if that gesture could reassure me.

"I have never forbidden it." She replied. "In fact I would welcome it. You should know this."

"There are a lot of things I should know." I replied. Hesitantly I stepped forward. All of the way up to the altar. My breath quickened, and I didn't know whether it was because I had never come this close to this altar before, or because of the irrational connection to death that I couldn't shake. I held my hand out, hovering just above Her.

"Go ahead." Her voice said. With a laugh She added. "You will not wake me."

I lowered my hand and pressed it on the altar for a moment, reverently touching the corner, as I had done when I approached him the same evening. Then I stepped back to create space.

"You are troubled." She said.

"This is an example of you incredible powers of perception?" I quipped.

An enormous weight lifted for just a moment off of my chest as Her lips curved in just the slightest smile. "Of course." She replied. After a pause she continued. "Tell me what you were thinking when you were at the wake."

"You know what I was thinking."

"We've discussed the relevance of that comment in the past." She chided.

"I thought a number of things." I answered. "Which do you want me to discuss?"

"All of them."

"I thought that I didn't really belong there." I began. "That the odds of anyone being there to whom I could be a use would be small."

"You thought this even before you went." She pointed out. "So why did you go?"

"I went for Her, for the most part." I told Her. "I went because she couldn't. And because I had known him, and his family deserved to see that he did not move on with a passing that was unnoticed."

"At the very least, I think you helped contribute to the latter, don't you?"

"Perhaps."

"You told his sister when she introduced herself that the simple fact that so many people were there that she didn't know was a telling sign of the impact her brother had made. Do you think that helped at all?"

"I don't know." I admitted.

"I do." She replied. "Tell me what you said to him."

I relayed the words I had said referencing a moment he and I had shared. A moment he frequently spoke of afterwards. I waited as the last of my words hung in the air.

Finally Her voice softly broke the silence. "I think those words had a beneficial effect on the man you said them for, don't you?"

"No. I don't." I answered. "They had no impact whatsoever. He couldn't hear them."

"You knew that when you spoke." She pointed out. "You didn't say those words for his benefit. You said them for yours. You spoke them to ease your own pain, and for a moment, it worked. I would say your mission was accomplished."

"I would say it was much more accomplished if you gave him a grace period." I replied, annoyed.

"A grace period? To set his affairs in order?" She questioned. "You know it does not work that way. You also know why."

"I meant on the other side of the coin." I answered. "So he could benefit from the knowledge of how much impact he had, in what ways. Couldn't we be allowed to at least witness our own funerals? Kind of a final tally?"

"To what end? What use would this knowledge be immediately after when he was no more?" She asked. "Would it not be easier to be clean cut?"

"I guess." I replied.

"You are temporary creatures, as you well know. The end comes when the end comes. That is all there is to it."

"Will she make it?" I asked, finally.

"You know I won't answer that question." She answered me.

"If she does, she will wake with the knowledge that he is not only gone, but she has missed even the final goodbye of the wake and/or funeral. He will simply be gone. Add to that her medical issues stemming from this, and if she manages to pull out of this, she could very well just end up wishing she hadn't."

"True."

I paced. "I am not saying that I would wish it to be the case, certainly her children wouldn't, but I can't help but wondering if my prayers for her survival might be selfish."

"You know they aren't selfish reasons." She replied. "Your reasoning is true, as is your clear and whole hearted desire to have her back. Now rest. Leave it in my hands."

"Can I trust you?" I asked, pusing it a little in the sarcasm department.

"It isn't like you have a choice." She said with another smile. There was a pause. "Sunday mattered." She said.

"Did she have anything to with that?" I asked.

"Of course." She answered. "Come, take my hand."

I approached slowly, and finally reached out and took her hand in mine. With a rush of light, and a warming through my soul, my surroundings went black.