A/N – Three times Marian said goodbye to someone she loved, and one time she couldn't. In the form of 100-word drabbles. Sorry if this is too depressing, but my grandmother recently passed away and writing is the way I cope with loss.

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Eli Paroo
October 1909

Papa's funeral was surprisingly nice, as far as funerals go. Marian would even say it was beautiful, the way his memory was honored. He had been well-liked in River City. She didn't shed a single tear during the service, which surprised her – she thought she'd be a sobbing wreck. Instead, she felt disconcertingly unmoored. When a small sprig of greenery fell out of one of the sprawling flower arrangements and tumbled pathetically to the floor, as if in wretched sympathy with her loss, she had to bite the inside of her cheek until the ghastly urge to giggle finally subsided.

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Henry Madison
September 1910

Marian was also dry-eyed at Uncle Maddy's funeral. But the inexorable finality of his loss hit hard during the procession – as she followed the hearse bearing his body to its final resting place, all she could think of was that he was gone. And she started heaving with sobs, even though her display would only fuel the malicious rumors. She felt like screaming at everyone they passed for circulating filthy lies. But she was a lady, no matter what they said. So she simply laid her rose on top of his coffin and whispered a tender goodbye through her tears.

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Margaret Paroo
September 1942

Marian thought she was an expert at mourning by now, but when Mama died, she discovered that each loss was exceedingly painful in its own unique way. Her mother had been on this earth for eighty years, and now that she was gone, the world would never be the same. But it helped greatly to know that Mama's passing was the natural order of things. She'd lived a long and full life, her convalescence was short, and she was ready to go. After thirty-three years of widowhood, she would be reunited with Papa, and the librarian couldn't begrudge her that.

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Robert Eli Hill
May 1948

It was the losses Marian wasn't prepared for that ended up hurting the most. She anticipated outliving her parents, Uncle Maddy, and even her husband. She never expected to lose a child. Which was rather ridiculous, as not only did children die of illness and injury, her son was a soldier. He'd been killed during D-Day, and when his body was brought home three years later, Harold had to arrange the funeral. She couldn't bring herself to get out of bed, as it was completely against the natural order of things. Parents were never supposed to bury their own children.

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There are moments that the words don't reach
There is suffering too terrible to name
You hold your child as tight as you can
And push away the unimaginable
~It's Quiet Uptown, Hamilton