Today was not fit for a funeral. It was much too bright, too happy. It was as if the day were out to mock his death, implying that his life wasn't important enough for the stereotypical dreary darkness, accompanied with a downpour.
I realized the irony of the weather as I stared down at his coffin, my just barely sixteen year old body nearly as dead as the man before me. As soon as it hit me, I broke into a fit of laughter. My giggling only added to the irony of the day and be-gifted myself with the stares of disgust and confusion from the others at the funeral. My mother gathered up her sobbing self from the edge of the company and took her and me from the scene, explaining as she went that we both had had a rough day and desperately needed time to think.
It didn't take us long to reach the line of vehicles parked along the length of pavement beside the graves within the walls of Konoha's lone cemetery. Going up to the beaten, gray Toyota Corolla that my mother never drove, I was hit with the question that had been plaguing both her and my minds. "What the hell is wrong with you?" she demanded, her voice sounding strained from the tears.
The pebbles and sand by my feet took up my interest as I answered, "The weather is beautiful."
A cough. "…What?"
"The weather. It's gorgeous," came my reply, earning another cough from my mother. "It's perfect weather for a funeral, don't you think, Ma?"
She snapped. Not into a fit of screams and yells and absurd questions, like I wished she had. Hissy fits I could handle. No. The wall holding all her tears came crashing down around her and the only one she could turn to was me. She snatched my black coat with loose hands and fell to her knees before me.
I glanced around to see if there was someone—anyone—that could do my mother more good than me. No one. Dammit. My gaze slipped down to her blotchy red face, snot and tears mingling to meet on my useless jacket. I took her shaky hands into my own and detached them from my jacket. Kneeling so her face was level with mine, I whispered, "Ma…maybe we should go home." The look on her aging face didn't change. "We could close all the drapes, put one of his favorite records on, and eat ice cream and bonbons 'till the sun goes down." A weak smile. I took it as a yes. Helping her to her feet and shedding my snot-infested coat, we got in the Toyota and left the cemetery with the radio blasting and Ma and I singing the last of the day's tears out.
That day, as I sat staring out the window and mumbling the parts of "Somebody to Love" that I didn't know with my mother, I decided that I hated sunny days.