Words failed me as I watched the coffin descend.
They weren’t stolen or misplaced. They simply didn’t exist anymore, evaporated into the thick, choking air that pressed down on my chest as the ropes slid through the men’s hands and the casket lowered inch by inch into the ground. Wood disappearing into earth. My father disappearing into forever.
The sound of soil shifting echoed too loudly in my ears. A dull, final sound. Like a door being shut in a house I would never enter again.
My mom’s scream cut through everything.
It was raw, animal. The kind of sound that comes from a place so deep it doesn’t care who hears it. She lunged forward, her body bucking with sobs, hands clawing at the air as if she could reach him, pull him back up, rewind time with sheer force. Family members grabbe
