3: ROSE

It's the next morning, the morning of my mother's funeral. Everyone else is ready, except me. I still refuse to get out of bed. It has been exactly two weeks and I still refuse to accept the fact that she's gone. She was taken from me and it's unfair. Why couldn't it be someone else's mom?

"Rose, c'mon! We don't have all day." My father said, as he was standing outside my door.

The pain in my father's voice finally woke me up. I got out of bed, grabbing the black dress from my bedroom door and I put it on. I took one look at myself in the mirror and I immediately started to break down. If I cry when looking at the dress, then how the hell do I live through this funeral?

After I did a couple of touches on my makeup, I walked down the stairs and I saw my family in all black. My father was wearing the tux he married my mother in, my brother is wearing a black buttoned T-shirt with black pants, and my little sister is in a black onesie with a little flower crown in her hair. I could feel my eyes well up, as I looked at everyone. Of course, I had to suck up those tears today.

"Let's go." My father said, as he opened the door for Chase and I.

My father walked to his car, holding my baby sister as my brother was playing on his iPad mini and I was holding a picture of mom from a year ago back when she always took me to eat icecream after school. She always got Wild N' Reckless. I usually get vanilla.

I opened the car door for Chase, as he got into the back of the car. I sat myself in front of the passenger's seat, right next to my father.

"You look like your mother, you know." My father said to me and I already felt the little swarms of tears flooding my eyelids.

This is going to be a lot harder than I thought it would be. I thought it would be decently difficult to hide these tears, but I already know that once I get home, I'm going to have to deal with a waterfall of tears.

It's inevitable. The waterfall is going to overcome my pillows once I get back home. However, I know that my mother wouldn't want me to cry today. She would want me to celebrate her youth.

As I realize the car has stopped, my dad takes the keys out and opens the door behind him to grab Arianna from her car seat. Then, he hands her to me to carry and I willingly grab Arianna with both of my hands, as I start to walk to the funeral ceremony with Chase.

The pain feels so real that it's unbearable. I hold Arianna and look at the open casket with my mother's body in it. Something about the body is weird. There was a red spot in the middle of her chest. I thought she died from a car accident while away on her business trip. Maybe the other car had a sharp glass in it that stabbed her or something.

"We are here today… to cherish and honor the life of lovely Janessa Paulina Pierce…" The priest said as he sprinkled rose petals on her lying corpse.

A couple hours later, after everyone gave their speeches to commemorate my mother's passing, it was my turn, and I was the last one.I got up to the podium and stared at my mother's dead body laying in that casket.

"Mother, I miss you so much. You were my favorite person on this planet and I have no idea what my life would be like without you. There are two words that I never got to say to you: thank you. Thank you for being my mother. Thank you for being the woman who raised me to be a strong person. Thank you for being the woman that I got to live with for sixteen years. Thank you for the happiness you brought the people around you. Arianna, Chase, and I were so lucky to have you as our mother." I said, my voice breaking and cracking throughout the reading.

You only say "thank you" to someone when they do something good for you. For example, you would say thank you for getting you pancakes in the morning, or when you get a fancy Christmas present from your grandparents. While being a good mother is a thing most people don't thank people for, some people in this world don't have the opportunity to thank theirs for being good, because their mothers aren't good to them.

As I watched the casket close, I watched my mom's body disappear from my eyes. Those last moments with her are gone and I feel as though my wound has grown even stronger.