The evening and night, after the funeral were awful. I couldn’t stop thinking about my mother being put in the cold dead soil. It had made my eyes teary every single time. At some point Thijn had come to my bedroom and crawled into my bed crying.
‘I miss mommy so much,’ he had muttered.
We spent hours revisiting memories and I even took out a scrapbook with pictures I took of our family. At some points we cried, other moments we just laughed over the nice memories. Even though Thijn had few memories with our mother, I loved sharing mine. We had fallen asleep together, on my bed. Only to wake up at screams of our father, yelling for Thijn.
‘Dad, I’m here, with Dyani!’ he yelled back.
Dad barged in and hugged Thijn.
‘I was scared you had run away,’ dad muttered, glancing at me for a moment.
‘No daddy, I couldn’t sleep, so Dyani and I looked pictures of you and me and mommy and Dyani,’ he explained in his childlike voice, tears filling his eyes at the thought of our mother.
Dad just rummaged through Thijn’s hair and we all went downstairs to eat breakfast. Me and Thijn sat on the couch with two simple sandwiches, watching some television. Dad came in a little after we finished eating.
‘What would you like to do today?’ dad asked, walking in.
‘Nothing!’ Thijn answered immediately.
I really believe he loved not having to go to school, but I knew he really missed mom as well.
‘I think I’ll call Gabriella when she’s done with school, to ask if she wants to hang out.’
‘So.. nothing ‘till three?’ he asked.
‘I guess.’
‘I thought, maybe, we could go to the beach for a bit and afterwards we could do the groceries?’
I nodded, that could be fun.
As I went upstairs I couldn’t think of anything to wear. It wasn’t extremely warm, but it was nice weather. I took out a nice shirt and put on a skirt, so if I wanted to walk into the water, I could. Downstairs I put on a pair of slippers, which would come off easily. Thijn and my father had gotten dressed sooner than me, so they were waiting for me. We went out and drove to the beach. It was warm weather, but the sun hadn’t warmed up the sea yet, so we didn’t bring swimsuits. I did bring a towel, just to be on the safe side. Thijn and me ran past the surf and tried to find shells that were intact. We played tag with dad and I treated us all on ice cream. As we got to the pier, Thijn was getting hungry and with the salty air, dad proposed to eat some fries on the pier. He bought us both a big portion and we enjoyed it. I’m sure my father and brother, not unlike me, thought about mom a few times, but it helped trying to find a distraction and being together as a family.
After our fries we went back to the car, which was quite a climb. We had to get some groceries, but Thijn was getting tired and didn’t want to go to the store.
‘We don’t have a choice sweetheart, we have to eat right?’ Dad tried.
‘Then we get some pizza?’ he muttered.
‘We can’t have pizza every night,’ I answered him.
‘Yes we can! We could just take margarita tonight and one with mushrooms tomorrow and then one with tuna?’ he pouted.
My father and me started to laugh, Thijn still pouted, not really realising why we were laughing.
‘Wouldn’t you like me to make sunday roast?’ I asked.
‘But it’s tuesday!’ he replied unbelieving.
‘You said you wanted pizza every day, so also on sunday right?’
‘No! You have to make roast next sunday!’ he muttered.
I knew how much he loved sunday roast, it was always his favorite.
‘Are you up to that? You used to make it together with..’ Dad stopped talking.
I knew he was still sad and it would take a lot of time for him to accept mom’s death. So would it for me and Thijn. Thinking of my mother, it only now really sunk in, I would never get to talk to her anymore. I did know this before, but I never really realised. Tears pricked behind my eyes and I struggled to keep them in. Why didn’t I have anyone to talk to anymore. I only saw Gabriella at school and Charley didn’t seem to be online much right now. The tears broke my boundaries, making me sob.. crying over the loss of mom.