It should have been raining. …No. More than that, it should have been pouring lakes and oceans of rain, so much rain I could drown in it.

The ground should have been soaked and oozing black mud that made my feet slip and slide and paint the only nice pair of shoes I had a light brown. My hair should have been dripping in wet infuriating curls around my face as I stared blankly at the mahogany coffin in front of me. My mascara should have been running in black tracks down my face, they would cry for me because I couldn't.

If it rained that much, buckets and lakes and oceans, I could pretend somebody cared, that I wasn't one of a mere seven people not there out of obligation. I could pretend that all of us cared, even though stony masks portrayed hardened hearts. I could pretend that the sky was crying for them, as it cried for me. I could pretend that maybe, if there was a God, he was weeping for a lost child, and not merely contemplating the bug smear on his shoe. And he would cry for all of us, too proud and too lost to cry for ourselves and what we had lost.

That's what it should have been like.

Instead, it was sunny, and not just nice sunny. It was pack up your bathing suits and towels and head for the beach sunny.

The ground was firm underneath my feet and the only nice pair of shoes I had stayed resolutely clean, tickled by green fingers. My hair was neat and straight, as perfect, I was sure, as it had been when I left the house, reflecting gold in dishwater blond. The only similarity I could find between my "should have been" and reality was the mascara running in black tracks down my cheeks, and vaguely wondering why I hadn't put on waterproof makeup.

In the revealing sunlight, there was nobody who cared, just myself and seven other people who wept openly. We cared. We were the only ones who cared, seven of us among dozens who stood there with their stony faces and hardened hearts mumbling artificial apologies. The sky didn't cry for them, and it didn't cry for me. There was nobody to weep for a lost child or for us, too proud and too lost to cry for ourselves and what we had lost. We were left to cry for ourselves, and what else could that be seen as but self pity?

So we cried and wept, pride thrown out the window and it rained buckets and lakes and oceans.