Chapter 4: Part of me

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You know how they say, when someone you really love passes away they take a part of you with them?

I believe that now. 

The morning following my mother's death was hectic. My father was throwing things around, yelling at me, yelling at no one. He threw a fit. Afterwards he just collapsed beside her, a sobbing mess. I felt....broken. I knew we had been expecting this, but it still shocked me. Soon enough I was breaking down, just the sight of her peaceful face was too much for me.

I left the house in a rush, running to the trees behind my house. I fell to the ground on my knees, hyperventilating and clutching handfuls of hair in my fists. Why now? Why when I was the least ready? Why, when my heart had just been broken, did fate have to destroy the pieces so completely?

Tears fell from my eyes, while my hands shook. Feeling a sudden rush of anger, I pounded the ground with my fists, over and over as if I was doing harm to whoever ripped my mother away from me. After bloodying my fists, I just sat there. Soon enough the sun started to set, and I looked up at it. Where had the day gone?

I suppose life goes much more quickly when you have nothing to live for anymore.

Then my father pops into my mind, and I rise to my feet shakily, needing to check on him. When I get inside the house looks like it had been hit by a tornado. My father is sitting on the bed, cradling my mother's lifeless body in his arms, stroking her face and begging that she come back, even as the heart monitor continues to whine. 

"Dad, she's gone. We have to get her t-"

"Don't you dare! How could you let her go so quickly?! Don't march in here all high and mighty and tell ME what I need to do! GET OUT! NOW!" Eyes wide, I just stand there frozen at the amount of venom in his tone.

When he sees me not moving, he places my mother gently on the bed and storms over to me. When he reaches me, I look into his grief filled eyes for a second before he pushes me roughly out the door, slamming it behind me.

I haven't let her go! I can't! Doesn't he see that he's not the only one grieving? I need him right now, and he......pushed me away. He pushed me away. He pushed me away.

I kept repeating this like a mantra in my head, too stunned to think anything else.

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Two weeks later, my mother's funeral is held. I was excused from school to help plan her funeral with my grandmother, on my mom's side of course, since my dad was a complete wreck. He has been cruel and snappish to anyone he spoke to since her death, and got a good smack from my grandma for it. After that he wouldn't go near her, much less plan a funeral with her.

That's where I come in. I like to think I' handling it well, but my grandmother insists I see a therapist. Like hell. I don't want to see anybody except my mom right now, and I know that isn't happening. 

I ignore my dad completely as they lower her into the ground. I tried to place a comforting hand on his shoulder, but he brushed it off with a vicious glare.

Looking down at my mom's coffin, my eyes fill with tears. All I wanted to do was scream, mommy come back! But I can't. How am I supposed to live without her though?

Most of my distant relatives were crying loudly, but I just let the tears slip down my face in silence. I had done my fair share of sobbing with abandon. After the service, my dad and I stay behind after everyone else has gone. Soon enough my dad leaves too, probably leaving me here.

Falling in front of the gravestone, I silently read my mother's name.

Laura Grace Jackson, beautiful daughter, beloved wife, and scale-breaking mother. 

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