Monday, June 5, 2000
"Mama..."
The funeral was over, the guests had gone over to the wake, and the coffin had been removed from the chapel, but Clarice hadn't left yet. Dressed head to foot in black, and feeling every bit as sorrowful as she looked and then some, she couldn't gather up the courage to leave yet. She doubted her legs could support her just then.
Tears leaving tracks down her eyes, she gazed over where her mother's coffin had laid only moments before. It had finally been taken out by the bearers although the pastor, seeing Clarice had stayed behind alone, had insisted they keep it there for as long as possible. It had finally been moved only when Clarice had encouraged the dubious pastor to do so, giving him a smile that didn't reach beyond her lips and made her heart cry out in anguish. Why should she be smiling at a time like this, even a fake smile.
Clarice knew her mother wouldn't want her only daughter to make such a hullabaloo over her funeral. She would have insisted that everyone celebrate her life, and now her afterlife, but for the moment Clarice couldn't bring herself to do that. The vibrant, active, strong woman who had been there every day of Clarice's twenty-five years was gone, and she didn't feel up to celebrating that fact just yet.