Cale Henituse: The Seven Sages (An Origin Series)

Chapter 13 - Welcome to the Henituse County (3)

"You kids are lucky you're cute."

- Deruth Henituse
B

- narration in first person

I - narration from the memories of an omniscient perspective

N - narration from the outsider's perspective

~

I was expecting more pain than what I'm currently feeling.

Watching your mother's coffin lowered six feet under would've made any eight years old wail. I was expecting the same for me— for us.

I was expecting father to cry his hearts out.

For Cale to faint from crying.

For me to beg for another second more to stay by my mother's side.

But no.

It was quiet. Peaceful even.

My father, kissed the red rose before dropping in inside the hole along with mother's coffin. Out of all flowers for that are white in color, father choose a red rose instead.

We all choose that together. Thinking this is a good idea to give to mom to wherever she's going.

A flower she loved from the people that loves her even more.

As the rose fell to the brown wooden box with a quiet thud, my father's shoulder shook a bit.

Maybe, just maybe...

The red rose carried more of what he could never give her more than I thought.

I admired my father more than I did after seeing him now.

Fragile yet determined.

I know how much mother meant to him, but the will to move forward for our sake was admirable. Cale was also quiet, at peace, like he usually is.

Cale has always been introverted and usually prefer to bask himself in the tranquil of silence and glares at me whenever I raise my voice energetically.

But now, Cale wasn't being his usual introverted quiet self. He was more quiet like his mind was settling something, like he's trying to create something in his mind.

And as he drop the red rose on mom's coffin gently, he let out a small smile.

Perhaps everything was not faring well in my brother's head. But the smile alone told me more of his resolve.

He's making a promise. Maybe to Mom, maybe to the rose, maybe to himself.

And that's enough to give me the strength to move forward and drop the red flower in my hand.

Praying for mother's safe travel. For father to slowly move forward. For Cale's health. For me.

To not let sadness consume me.

Maybe we haven't accepted everything yet. Acceptance was a hard pill to swallow, it has a sad aftertaste and it burns your core with helplessness and rage.

But once acceptance is swallowed, it'll melt into a puddle of self improvement. And the next pill would not be so hard to down.

Mother's death is still a hard pill to swallow. Maybe father will down it with a shot of wine. Maybe Cale and I will throw a tantrum before swallowing it. But after that, we'll turn to each other whether complaining or criticising the taste maybe even crying at how difficult the process was.