No Rain Today (standard:non fiction, 971 words)
Author: Zach Day	Added: Feb 14 2002	Views/Reads: 3309/1	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A self-reflecting story on why I did not shed a tear when my Grandmother passed away.

No Rain Today 

It’s not like I didn’t want to, trust me I did, but I just couldn’t
bring myself to do it. It just wasn’t me. I know that makes me sound 
somewhat egotistical. So what maybe I am slightly, but that still 
shouldn’t stop me from doing it. It was something I was expected to do, 
something that I expected myself to do. 

It started as any other day would, I got ready for school as normal,
only there was this odd feeling in the air. You know that feeling you 
get when something wrong is going to happen.  It wasn’t until seven o’ 
clock that my dad came into my computer room and told me that It was 
fine that I stayed home from school. My grandmother had passed away. 
The rest of the week was a blur of  family members that I had never 
met, sobbing that she was a great woman. Granted she was a great woman 
and I was very close to her, but who were these people telling me about 
MY grandmother. I sat and I watched with child-like amusement at the 
people sobbing, and crying. Yet not a single salt filled tear fell from 
my baby blue eyes. It was a strange thing, there were so many things in 
my life, simple things, like the a hurt knee, or a broke toy, that more 
often then not would have been broken by me, yet this was my 
grandmother, some one that I was close to. Someone that was always 
there for me, someone that I loved. Yet no tears would come. I thought 
about everything that I had done with her in my seventeen years on this 
earth, yet the tears would not come. It wasn’t until the day of the 
funeral that everything hit me, hard. I for the first time in a long 
time saw my father cry. Now, even as grown boy, I was.. shall I say 
scared to see my father cry, the only man in my life that has played a 
role in my life, besides some of my friends. This was like a hard blow 
to the chest for me. I sat there, in the funeral home, with people from 
the past and present all around me, most of them were not crying, yet. 
There was the occasional sob here and there, as people would shuffle in 
to see the body. I know, I just called my grandmother the body, but 
that’s all she was, no mind, no soul, just a body. All this time no 
tear had even wanted to well up in my eyes. The time went by slowly, 
just as slow as it would in school, only I wasn’t with my friends 
making me happy, I was with people that I’d met once or twice in my 
life. I didn’t want to be here, all of the people here were older then 
my by at least ten years, if not more. All of these people were here 
for my grandmother. They didn’t matter to me, even if they were there 
for her, and that is the important thing 

“Zach, It’s time for the funeral okay?” My mothers voice rang out to me
in my own little void, I had locked myself into. “Yeah okay” I know 
that I sounded perky and happy, even if It was fake. I remember being 
lead into a small room filled with my Aunt, Uncle, little cousin, and 
both of my parents. We were only in there for a few seconds at tops 
before we were lead into the main room by the preacher. The reset of 
the time was a blur. I remember hearing everyone crying, and sobbing 
into there already wet tissue. Yet I had not even tough about crying. I 
know I sat there staring at the casket that contained my grandmother, 
thinking if she was safe where ever she was at, and if she was watching 
me not cry over the loss of her life. Then, I wondered if she was happy 
that I wasn’t crying, and being the strong one. “Amen” With that said 
we all shuffled out of the room, saying good bye to my grandmother for 
some time. We were lead back to the same little room we started in, 
mainly to get our wits about us, and stop crying. I felt out of place. 
Here were four grown humans crying their eyes out along with a little 
nine year old girl, then there we me sitting there wondering why I 
hadn’t shed a tear yet. Yet again the stay here wasn’t all that long, 
before we went down stairs for some ham sandwiches, cake and some 
punch. Something creeps me out about eating food in the same building 
where there have been countless dead bodies. So I just sat there again 
and listened to people talk about her as if she were still around. The 
rest of the day was A blur, I remember a few friends showing up after 
school just as we were bringing all the flowers and left over food out 
to the cars. And I recall going home that night and not sleeping, 
wondering why in the past week I had not cried. That day there was no 
rain. I tough myself a few different lessons that day that changed my 
life. Everyone pounds two things into your head. Don’t cry, and It’s 
okay to cry. I found out that if you don’t cry, your going to find 
another way to express how your feeling. And if you do cry, you can’t 
think of any other way to express your feelings. I also realized that 
America has gotten so used to death that it doesn’t bother them  like 
it has in the past, and that’s really sad. 


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