To Save Myself

The casket in the front of the room is shut.  I can just barely make it out through my blurred vision.  No one seems to be distressed in the very slightest.  I don't even know most of the people here now that I think about it.  I look to the back of the room; he is sitting there, and even worse, he's smiling.  How can he be smiling? Does he feel no remorse?! He did this! Oh! Who am I kidding?! He couldn't care less; he never gave a second thought to what happened to her unless it was to find a new way to make her miserable.  This is just one step up from everything else he put her though; he put us through. I turn back again and walk to the front of the room. No photographs or flowers are to be found for her anywhere in the room.  She never took pictures. She didn't want people to see the bruises, burns, and cuts.  Probably also the reason the casket is closed. He arranged this: the death and the funeral, so I wouldn't be surprised. I was the one who found her that day.  The day he did this. I saw her then, and it wasn't a pretty sight.  It took all of my strength to not dash away sick.

Glancing around the room, I noticed the colorful projection of sunlight through the stained glass windows.  The light danced over the chatting people, contrasting with their dark clothing.  Ironic how Earth, which has already stolen this amazing woman from my life, can so well reveal the truth that people try so diligently to mask.  I place one hand atop the smooth polished wood of the casket as another tear rolled down my already damp, puffy face.  I feel him walk up behind me as I whisper a choked "Mom" to the woman hiding silently within the wooden prison as if expecting her to save me.  Now it's up to me to save myself just like I should have for her.  As I inwardly vow to make this my duty, the man biology calls my father pulls me away roughly by the wrist.