Chapter Twenty-Five: How final is death?

When my mother died, I couldn’t understand the depth of death. The finality of it was incomprehensible to me. My mind was too young and sold to fantasies to process that I would never see her again. My Father and my sisters were cautious in breaking the news to me but I never understood why, They explained to me in little doses, as if I couldn't handle the full truth.

It was because I couldn’t handle tragedy and they knew, I couldn't stand great pain without crumbling and right from childhood it was evident.

Back then, even after they had told me of her demise, I would ask father every day when she would return, hurting him and pressing my hands further into where it hurt most without even realizing it. He would tell me she wasn’t coming back and I would begin to cry and wail nonstop, my entire being in a steady refusal of the fact that she had ceased to exist.

As my wobbly legs carried me to the broken form of Lola on the floor, I could hear that part of me crying out in denial on