Memoir

Looking around the room at all of these faces I realized that no one expected it, any of it. To my right there is a wall full of red roses and picture of Gene King, my great-great-grandfather, and a lot of thing that we now will always remember him by. Daddy Gene, as we called him, was probably one of the lovable and most happy person I could ever think of, and then the unexpected happened. One night in his apartment when he was there alone, and he just got new medication for his back, his neighbor heard a gun shot, a couple of days later my family told me that my Daddy Gene committed suicide. My first thought was, another funeral? but then it kicked in that I will never be able to see him again. For a while from before Gene's death to here at his funeral, and after, my family has been going through tears. It all started two months earlier when my dog, Pepper, started to get sick, and then eventually die. After she pasted, my dad's mother started falling over and eventually having to use a wheelchair, to bed ridden, to eventually leaving us. These past three months my family has had to deal with three deaths (including my dog) and two funerals, and now that I am sitting here and the third death and second funeral, it is just now sinking in.

Going, unfortunately, back to reality I look around to these mostly familiar faces I start to cry yet again. Everyone has there attention on the priest behind the dark brown casket, holding hands of loved ones, and not even bothering to wipe the tears off their faces. I see my brother staring with pained and glossy eyes, but not one tear has run down his cheek, I hope he knows it is okay to cry.

I look back a row to my parents, and to my shock, both of them are crying. My mom has always been the cry er in our family, so there was no surprise there, but my dad crying is probably one of the most heart-breaking things I will ever see. This will be the second time I have ever seen him cry, and hopefully the last. Tearing my eyes away from the tear jerkers, my eye catches onto my friends, Dorian Albert, and my youth minister, Andy Stoker. Seeing me looking at them, they make silly faces, and to there delight (and everyone else's concern) I start laughing. They always know how to cheer me up. I feel a hard squeeze on my purple hand and bring my attention to my cousin, Melissa. Out of all of my cousins, she is more like a sister to me. Her round face looks at mine and she mouths that she wants to leave, and I nod my head to agree with her. Looking around the room one more time, I think of the other bad news that my family will have to get together for. My dad's step-mom, Sara, just got diagnosed with brain cancer. It is amazing that throughout all of these months and weeks of pain that I will always remember the worst moments the best, but I think that is how everyone's mind works, don't you?
And now as the famous last song, Amazing Grace, is playing my closing thoughts were: "I love you, and I miss you." And now getting up to go face all of the "I'm sorry's" it was my turn to squeeze a purple hand and then get up, and move on.