The wind doesn’t like me. It must not because it’s beating against my face, bullying my hair, slashing at my dress. No one else seems to notice as it whips us around, in control. The sky is gray and it’s perfect because today is a gray day. It’s perfect funeral weather. Everyone’s faces are the proper amount of mournful and sorrowful. Today is the day we bury you. We are all in our darkest clothes, with our saddest faces, even people who never knew you are now here to pay their respects. I want to laugh the bitterest laugh ever, because they never respected your life. It’s funny how people give you the most attention when it’s too late for you to care.
My eyes flick over to your mother. She was never a Church person, neither were you but here we are. In the Church graveyard because of you. Her face looks old and tired and drawn. I know you would want to know if he is here. But he’s not. The b------ knows, because I told him myself, but your father did not come.
Today I feel a hundred years old, which is ironic because I’m only seventeen.
“Ashes to ashes…”
As the sermon starts and I close my eyes.  I don’t know how long I’m supposed to stand here, in the cold and the wind to prove to these silent people I loved you. I don’t want to be here because I don’t need to. You know what you are, were to me.
I want to cry but I won’t because I learned at a young age crying doesn’t resurrect people. And suddenly it’s not today but it’s last year, yesterday, this morning. And everywhere, you.
I can feel your arms around me, I can smell your cigarettes, see the glow of your eyes, and feel the rough skin on the underside of your hands. I knew those hands, I will miss those hands. I stand at your funeral, selfish because I wanted you forever. I wanted to fall in love with you every day.  Grief claws at my soul because you are gone.
I think of all the things we shared, beautiful and sacred things these mourners will never understand. They knew you as a sullen, angry boy, a troubled soul. I can see it in their eyes that they are only here because they pity your mother. They never gave you a smile in their lives. They thought you were a problem.
I really don’t know what we had because it’s hard to define. Sometimes we kissed, sometimes we fought. I think it was love, I want it to have been love. But we were so young. I still am young and you will be eighteen forever.
The sky shakes with the sounds of thunder. Lightening crackles and worried faces scan the sky. They are nervous because the storm is coming. Then without further warning the water bursts from the sky. Rain soaks our faces, skins, clothes mercilessly. It’s as if God himself weeps for you. I open an umbrella. One lonely, black umbrella reaches for the sky as people scramble for cover, shelter in the Church. I see no need to rush. After all, it’s perfect funeral weather.  Tears slip down my face, and under the wings of the black umbrella, no rain can wash them away.