True Heroes Never Really Die
Like a rain-soaked storm cloud blanketing my mind and infusing every pore, my breath lay strangled in my throat. Every innocent hope was rendered null and left behind only sadness. My young soul simmered to bursting without relief. My dad was gone. Goddamnit! Ten-year-old boys are not equipped to suffer such a wrenching loss as death, which was the main attraction that day. One closing act erasing the remnant traces of my father’s life from this earth. Center stage, garish sprays of flowers seen only at horse races and funerals surrounded the shiny casket. From where I was seated, neatly filed away between Mom and Grandma, I could see the waxen features of Dad’s once strong face protruding from the polished box. Archaic piped-in hymns kept the mood at full-tilt grim, and Death’s boots stomped their indelible print into my miserably shattered soul. We, family members, were seated well away from the larger gallery of mere spectators, the obligatory witnesses to our collective grief. A we