It was snowing.

It wasn’t supposed to be snowing. It was March, for God’s sake. It didn’t start to snow in March.

Dead grass crunched beneath my feet, and the stinging wind whipped my hair in my face. The day was chilly, dismally chilly, dark, gray, and utterly bleak.

All around me are stumps of stone, each carefully marked with names, dates, and messages to people who can no longer hear. Withered flowers lie scattered on the ground, amongst the yellowed grass and stray leaves.

This ground is uneven, not made for walking in heels. My ankle twists painfully a few times as I climb up the short incline.

They set up a tent. Blue canvas and fake green carpet cover the area, hiding the churned up soil and newly dug hole. A row of chairs covered in velvety fur sits in front, but I stand behind them instead.

Stooped figures carry the heavy load up the incline, bringing it to the front of the tent. The box they carry looks almost too heavy for them to hold, and yet how could it be heavy? Its occupant barely reaches my shoulder, barely weighed over seventy pounds.

The box itself seems strange, a metallic silver color. Why did they pick that? It should be different. The silver doesn’t fit. It should be mahogany, like the round coffee table that I invariably bump into, mahogany like the piano that no one ever plays. The piano that was the resting place of stuffed animals, collected since the time of her children’s childhood.

Inside that box…I know that her favorite pink polyester blazer is there. There is a rosary, of course, but it’s not a plastic, glow-in-the-dark one like the one she gave to me.

I wish they had put a snow globe in there and a picture of a Schnauzer.

There are other things that should be in there as well. The coffee mugs, picked out carefully at my grade school’s Christmas shopping thing for the first through third graders, kept for years, even though they had no use for them. The tiny stained glass window, that hung from the actual kitchen window, and cast rainbow shadows all about the room. The magnetic wooden guitar, hung from the refrigerator, singing out when the fridge door was opened.

The priest begins to speak, but I do not register his words. I can’t wait to be away from this place. It’s too cold, and it’s too sad. We will be eating next, an Italian place I’ve been to thousands of times. Italian is fine, but the food they serve isn’t right. They should serve microwave Tombstone pizzas. They should serve packets of M&M’s and gumdrops. They should serve Hawaiian Punch, AW Root Beer, Pepsi, and orange soda. They should have mini Oreos and Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies. They should have all that, all the time, available on demand.

Plastic, floral tablecloths should be on the tables. Half-sheets of paper, with phone numbers scrawled on them, should be taped to the walls.

I shouldn’t be here, none of us should, least of all the grandmother in the box. It all happened so fast…I’m behind, trying to catch up, as we walk to the car. What the hell happened? In only three months? She was fine before Christmas! I swear; she was. Why did it happen? Why so fast? How could she leave us? Where is she now? Why is it snowing, it’s March for God’s sake.

It is a snow globe, but where is the music? I can’t hear the tune.