Once her uncle's body was brought home and laid in repose for the final public respects, Ariana found a moment of quiet. She plugged her dead phone into a charger, and as soon as it had enough power, she called Kian. Her voice was thin, frayed at the edges as she recounted the devastating news. On the other end of the line, Kian's response was immediate and steadfast. "I'll be there," he promised. "I'll take the first train in the morning." The call ended, but his words left a small, warm ember of comfort in her chest. Fortified, Ariana turned her energy to the somber task of organizing the funeral, a heavy responsibility she shouldered for her grieving aunt.
The wake was held that evening, a quiet vigil filled with soft whispers and shared memories that painted a picture of the good man they had lost. 🕯
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The next day dawned grey and heavy, as if the sky itself was in mourning. By 9 a.m., Kian was at the aunt's doorstep, his presence a silent pillar of support. He didn't offer empty words; instead, he immediately began helping with the practical, demanding preparations. 😟
The funeral mass was a blur of hymns and prayers, a solemn ceremony that formalized the goodbye. At around 2 p.m., the funeral procession moved to the cemetery. The final journey was made by four pairs of hands bearing the weight of the coffin—a duty of love and respect shared by the uncle's son, Kian, the uncle's younger brother, and his best friend, Peter.
At the graveside, the committal service was read, the final words spoken over the body before it was lowered into the earth. The sound of her aunt's heart-wrenching sobs, mingling with the cries of other loved ones, was a sound Ariana knew would haunt her forever.
As the first shovels of earth fell, the finality of it all seemed to extinguish the last flicker of strength in her aunt. She slumped, becoming a dead weight, a living corpse consumed by grief. Ariana, Kian, and her cousin had to gently but firmly support her, half-carrying her away from the fresh grave and back to the hollow silence of the house.
That night, sleep was a forgotten luxury. The aunt sat motionless, lost in her pain. The rest of the household moved through the hours in a silent, shared vigil, each lost in their own memories and the profound, echoing absence that now filled their home. 😔