The funeral is beautiful. Heartbreakingly beautiful. There's a simplicity about it, that mirrors exactly who she is. Who she was. Before her life was so cruely taken from this world. Before her light, her passion was snuffed out long before it should have been. The flowers are white lillies. Her favourite. They fill every spare space, taking over every empty crevice until the church looks more like a wedding than what it really is. More like a celebration than the heartbreaking goodbye that none of us are ready to face. But that's fitting in a way too. Because she deserves to be celebrated. Her life, her beauty, everything she was should be seen for what it was. She should be remembered, should be celebrated for who she was, and not the tragic shortness of her life.
Em gets up infront of everyone, finding a stength from somewhere deep within that allows her to give them all that she has left. It's strength that reminds me so much of Gill that it knocks the wind out of me. Forces me to see past Zoe, past myself, until all I see is how alike they are. How much Em takes after her. She does a reading. A poem of a daughter seeking forgiveness from her mother. She faulters over some of the words, her system being flooded by the memories of the last words they spoke. Of the cruel way she filled her voice with venom as she tried to get her to come back. She shakes with anger, at herself, for the words she cannot take back. The words that will haunt her forever. Tears line her cheeks as her carefully chosen poem twists into a public apology. Her words directed at the coffin, her heart seeking comfort, needing forgiveness from the woman the wood holds.
I watch as she falls apart in front of everyone. Watch as she lets go of her strength and allows her walls to be broken down by her proximity to Gill. Watch as she delicately places a hand on the cold, glossy wood as she struggles with knowing they will never be this close again. And as I watch, as I take in the moment, I realise that here, right now, she is not my daughter. She does not belong to me. Nor does she belong to Zoe. She belongs to Gillian. And maybe she always has done in a way. They shared something so pure, so honest, that i'm sure I will never understand it. So I don't move from my seat in the front row. Don't reach out to touch her. To try and offer comfort. I sit and watch as she silently reaches down and presses her lips onto the surface of the coffin. Watch as she transforms before my eyes, turning into someone I do not recognise. Watch as she becomes a little girl once more. A vulnerable, broken little girl whispering goodbye to her mother. Because that's what Gillian was. They may not have shared the same blood. They may not have had a piece of paper that made it legal. But they were family. They were mother and daughter. And her death will never change that.
As she takes her seat beside me once more, I reach out for her hand, trying to offer her something, anything, but she shys away from my touch. And in that moment, she becomes unreachable to me. Because in this moment, there is nothing I can do to ease her pain. Part of her has died with Gillian. So there is nothing I can to to make her heart whole again. Nothing I can do but be here, holding the pieces of her that she has left behind while she travels the dark searching for her mother. Nothing I can do but wait for the day she is brave enough to come up for air. Brave enough to live in a world without her. Nothing I can do but wait. Wait until the day that Gillian returns her too me.
But as I watch the coffin dissapear, watch as the box that is holding both of my most precious possessions is taken from me, I can't help but wonder whether Emily will actually ever come back to me. I can't help but wonder whether there will be anything left of me if she ever does. I can't help but wonder whether this might just be the end for all of us.
I don't know what is it that took her from me. It's been three weeks since she left us, two week since we burried her and i'm still no closer to discovering what evil it is that snatched her right out from under me. That was her final request apparently. For me not to be told her secret. Not to be given access to the demons she couldn't beat. She was very specifc about it. Or so i've heard. From her lawyer. From the officers who notified me. She left no instructions about how she want her funeral to be. No requests for music or flowers. No plans to guide us on how to let her go. We had to figure that one out on our own. She left nothing but a simple statement; "Don't tell Cal what happened to me". And they honour her wishes, leaving me flailing around in the dark.
I don't know whether to be angry or thankful. Don't know whether I should hate her for it, or love her more beause of it. Can't work out whether she was protecting me from something, or whether she didn't trust me enough to let me in on her final moments. Let me be a part of the final seconds that made up the ending of her. I change my mind alot. The question of why and all its possible answers circling round my brain, taking over my mind as sleep evades me. Which is most nights.
I can pretend pretty well in the day. My focus on Emily, and trying to guide her through a pain that has grabbed her with both hands and is refusing to let her go. That has wrapped her in chains so tight, that I wonder how she will ever be able to escape them. I give her everything I have left, everything of me that has not been engulfed by the emptiness that Gill has left in her wake. It's what she'd want me to do. She'd want me to fight to the death to bring Em back. If it had been the other way around, had been me that had been taken so suddenly, I know she would have fought with everything she had to restore some light to my daughters eyes. Our daughters eyes. So after the funeral, after too many glasses of scotch that are tainted with memories of her that i'm trying to escape, I make a silent promise into the night. A silent promise to her that this will not be our ending. That I will do what she would want, and try and make it better. So I attempt to ease Ems' suffering, even when I am incapable of easing my own. Not that it works. My attempts are all in vein. Because there is nothing I can say, nothing I can do to give her what she wants. Nothing I can do to bring back Gill.
But come night, i'm alone. Em's down the hall, locked in her room battling the night and the new waves on pain that it brings. Fighting the darkness and the way the edge of sleep brings a ghost so real, that just for a minute you believe that she isn't really gone. And so i'm alone. With nothing but my thoughts. Nothing but the memories of her, and all the unanswered questions that her actions have left me with. My brain unwilling to move on from it's search to find out why this had to happen. What caused this to happen. Because I have to know. I need answers to the questions that course through my body every second of the day.
Why she couldn't let me in.
Why she walked away when she could have come to me. When she should have come to me.
Why she didn't let me try and help her.
Why she didn't trust me to save her.
Thanks for reading! Every time I think this story is reaching the end, my brain takes me somewhere else and another chapter appears. This story will still end the way I always planned, we just seem to be going on a slightly longer journey to get there. Hope some of you are still with me, and aren't getting too depressed/bored with all the sadness!