the way I see the world

Nyla sat quietly on the third pew of the chapel, knees pressed tightly together, fingers entwined in her lap. The air was cool and heavy with the smell of damp flowers and cedar from the open casket at the front of the room. Outside, the sky had turned a bitter gray and a cold drizzle pattered against the chapel windows. Each raindrop seemed to echo the hush of the mourners inside. Stained glass filtered the gray light into pale blue and violet shades across the polished wood floor. The chapel was small and old, with stone walls that hummed with centuries of hushed voices. Tall bouquets of white lilies and pale yellow roses flanked the twin wooden coffins at the front, each adorned with her mother and grandmother’s favorite flowers. Candles burned softly on the altar, the flame reflections flickering like silent memories in Nyla’s eyes. She heard her name in a soft voice. Her Aunt Marisol sat beside her, hand resting gently on her shoulder. Aunt Marisol’s face was pale, eyes red from crying, but she offered Nyla a small, reassuring smile. “I’m here,” Aunt Marisol whispered, squeezing Nyla’s shoulder. Nyla nodded faintly and stared straight ahead at the closed caskets. She felt a tight knot in her throat but no tears came. Around them, others had gathered: distant cousins Nyla barely knew, a neighbor from down the street, a teacher who had taught her little brother. All wore dark clothes and mournful faces, crowding the chapel in solemn respect. Nyla shifted her gaze to the front. The two coffins lay side by side—one draped in a pale pink ribbon, the other tied with lavender satin. Her mother’s name, Elise, was engraved in gold on the smaller casket; her grandmother’s name, Margaret, glistened on the larger one. At the foot of the coffins, framed photographs rested on easels. In one, her mother smiled gently, brown curls framing her face. In the other, her grandmother’s blue eyes danced with warmth. Nyla’s heart felt heavy, but strangely silent, as though it were a stone sinking through lead water. She felt distant from the scene before her. The words of the priest—prayers, eulogies, soothing speeches—drifted over her like a distant wind. She was numb, watching tear tracks mark Aunt Marisol’s cheeks and hearing relatives whisper their sympathies. One older woman murmured to another, “They’re together again now. What a blessing.” A man beside Nyla quietly said, “Both gone at once… I can’t imagine.” Nyla didn’t respond. The emptiness inside her swelled louder than the voices around her. A memory floated up unbidden. She was seven years old, standing in her small kitchen with her mother. It was morning, sunlight trickled through lace curtains onto the checkered floor. Her mother, petite and warm, hummed a soft tune as she kneaded dough for cinnamon rolls. Nyla remembered tapping a finger against the window as raindrops chased each other down the glass—raindrops much like those falling outside now. The sweet scent of sugar and cinnamon always made her think of home. In that memory, Nyla reached out to flick a bit of dough from her mother’s nose. Her mother laughed and wiped it away with a floury finger. “Don’t sneeze in the dough, silly,” she chided gently. Young Nyla giggled; that laughter felt safe and golden. In her daydream, her mother was saying, “Everything will be alright.” “Everything will be alright,” her mother used to say, tucking a strand of hair behind Nyla’s ear. Another image sprang to Nyla’s mind. She and her grandmother in the spring garden of the old house. Grandma Margaret kneeling in the soil, planting seeds of bright orange tulips. Warm sunlight turned her hair to silver gold. Laughter rippled through the air as Nyla chased a bumblebee around the flowerbeds. Her grandmother spun her around and then sat her down on the grass. They drew pictures with sticks in the dirt. “Under each breath of sorrow, a laugh is waiting to bloom, like flowers after rain,” her grandmother used to say whenever sadness found Nyla’s heart. Grandmother’s words were gentle and steady: “Under each breath of sorrow, a laugh is waiting to bloom, like flowers after rain,” she would say. The memory grounded Nyla even as the ceremony continued around her. Nyla blinked, returning to the present. The organist had started playing a soft hymn, and people took their seats. She saw her Uncle Joel struggling to hold back tears at the pulpit, the lines of loss carved deep into his face. He spoke of how Elise and Margaret had filled everyone’s lives with love, how suddenly they had been taken away. It was all the usual tender words. Nyla saw her own reflection in a polished wooden panel—pale girl in black, face expressionless. Numb, she thought, her eyes flat. Shouldn’t I feel something? At the end of the row, a woman Nyla didn’t recognize—a colleague of her mother’s—was saying something to Aunt Marisol. She turned as the woman approached. “Your mother was one of the kindest people I’ve known,” the woman said softly, tears in her eyes. Nyla’s stomach twisted. She wanted to say yes, she was kind, or she loved me. Instead, only a fragile smile appeared. A tiny upturn of her lips and a barely audible, “Thank you.” Across the chapel, sunlight danced on white pillar candles lined along the walls. In the wavering light, Nyla saw her grandmother’s face flicker, like a memory too vivid to fade. She remembered a summertime bonfire long ago, Grandma’s laughter echoing above the crackling flames. Grandma’s hair had caught the orange firelight as she told Nyla tall tales about fairy kingdoms. Those stories had made Nyla feel brave when storms were near; the firelight in those memories was like hope flickering in the dark. The flame at the altar sputtered softly as a shaft of wind came through a loose window pane. Some of the congregation stood and moved forward to pay respects. Nyla felt an eerie distance from it all, as if she were watching through glass. When had the world become a motionless painting she couldn’t touch? After the ceremony, they filed out. Rain had begun in earnest. Umbrellas bobbed like dark flowers in a field of black coats. Nyla lingered by a stained-glass window, watching the chapel garden blur behind the droplets. Aunt Marisol gently took her elbow. “We should say our goodbyes,” she said. They followed the others to the small family plot behind the chapel. Nyla followed in a cluster of mourners, feet crunching on wet gravel. The pastor bowed his head in prayer, then invited anyone who wished to lay flowers onto the coffins to step forward. In hushed sorrow, people placed single white roses into the opened casket lids one by one. In Nyla’s hand, the white rose felt like a fragile bird. She let it go, watching it fall onto the lavender satin of her grandmother’s casket. Overhead, clouds parted for a moment. A stray ray of sunlight touched the two graves side by side, as if a gentle hand was saying them together. Her name was said softly by those around her, and Aunt Marisol guided Nyla to a worn wooden bench nearby. Two fresh graves stared at them: one marked Elise, one marked Margaret. The spade-bitten earth was dark and soft. Behind Nyla, people wept quietly into handkerchiefs, their breath soft in the damp air. The sound of shovels thudding into soil was strangely loud. Dirt slipped onto the caskets with a muffled thud. The air smelled of damp earth. Nyla closed her eyes. Clay tastes bitter on the tongue, she remembered her grandmother once saying when they painted pottery together. The simplicity of that recollection held her steady. When the ceremony ended, the crowd slowly dispersed. A distant cousin of her mother’s gave Nyla a quick pat on the back, whispering condolences. Aunt Marisol gently took her arm, steering Nyla away from prying questions. “He couldn’t get away from work, sweetie,” Aunt Marisol had whispered earlier, about Nyla’s father. She hadn’t argued. If anyone asked later, she would say he was stuck in an important meeting. They walked back to the car, umbrellas overhead as the rain fell harder. Nyla’s black boots splashed through puddles. Everything felt wet and heavy. She watched a droplet slide down the car’s windshield, a tiny bead of water wandering like time itself—some moments landing softly, others splashing and vanishing. She could almost hear her grandmother’s voice, “Time passes in drops,” but her throat was too tight to speak it aloud. At home that evening, the house was quiet. Only Aunt Marisol lingered for company, sitting close on the couch with a cup of tea. The lamps glowed warmly, but Nyla felt chilled. Upstairs, in her small bedroom, Nyla finally allowed herself to collapse onto the bed. The pillow was soft, but not soft enough for her cheek. She stared at the wallpaper – a faded pattern of wildflowers – and felt nothing. Late into the night, Nyla slid from the bed and tiptoed to her desk. Beside her lamp lay her leather-bound diary, pages filled with poems and scribbled thoughts. She opened it to a blank page. Rain pattered against the window as she picked up her pen. Her hand trembled a little, but she wrote as if the pen was catching falling raindrops on paper. Her thoughts poured out, not as complete sentences, but as raw fragments of what she could not say aloud: “Time passes in drops, she thought. Some landing softly, others splashing into nothing. ‘I wish I could say I miss you, I need you, I want you back, I think about you all the time, I cry everyday because of you, all the things that a normal person would say in my state or say I hate you, I despise you, I never want to see you again, I wish that I had never met you, I just want to die because of you, or say I'm happy for you, I’m glad that you got a break, you must be happy wherever you are, I hope God makes you happy, but no I said nothing I wish I had felt sad, happy or angry any other feeling but no I felt nothing, I felt numb, I felt useless, I just stood there and now I regret every moment I wish I could say something.’ Nyla paused, pen hovering above the paper. She stared at the words she had written, the jagged raw edges of her heart laid bare on the page. She felt as though a weight had shifted and settled somewhere deep inside. The candle on her desk flickered, and for a moment, Nyla felt truly alone with her grief, yet strangely connected through those words. Silence returned, filled only by the steady patter of rain. In that silence, Nyla put down her pen, closed the diary slowly, and lay back on her bed, finally feeling the exhaustion of her soul. Her tears came then, quiet and long overdue, as she finally let the emptiness in. The night wrapped around her like a thin blanket, and Nyla drifted toward sleep, leaving the chapter of this painful day behind.