I’ve been to enough funerals in my twenty-eight years of living. I’m not a fan of them. I doubt anyone is.

This particular funeral today, though, has not only shocked me, it’s obliterated the only piece of my heart that was left and has grounded it to the finest of dust.

Over the past several days, I’ve said ‘thank you’ to hundreds of people paying their last respect, their pity for the tragedies that have turned me bitter flitting on the edge of their tongues. I’ve smiled respectfully when all I’ve really wanted to do was tell them to leave me alone. To take my misfortunes and go away.

This past year has been one of the worst years of my life. I don’t want to be here saying good-bye to the woman who helped me survive all of the losses I’ve faced. It started with my parents, my sister; and, as horrible as it may sound, the worst loss I've experienced, well, that would be the sudden death of my husband four years ago. It’s a time of my life that will never go away. A time in my life that haunts me day and night.

While my sweet grandma Elizabeth suffered as much as I did, she always put Alexis and me first. Tried to help me cope with the downward spiral. I’ll never feel her frail arms wrapping around me again.

I blink. Exhaustedly. I don’t want to be standing here gawking at the giant hole in the ground when the open one in my chest is daring me to glance over at my sister’s and parents’ headstones. My entire family is gone.

I feel the knife life has stabbed me in the back with sitting dangerously on my spine when they start to lower her casket into the ground. I stiffen. Life is enforcing its message loud and clear. I don’t have a single blood relative left. No husband to help me mourn, to hold me and tell me that someday everything will be alright. It wouldn’t matter, because nothing will ever be right again. Pain like this will never go away.

My heart skids to a gripping halt. “Grandma, I love you so much. The saddest part about being the one left behind is having to live without you. Without all of you. I know I have to do it; I just don’t know how. You would tell me I haven’t really been living at all if you were here, wouldn’t you?” I reach up and wipe the tears away. A lot of good it’s going to do me when they don't stop falling no matter how much I wish them away.

I can’t seem to move. I’m freezing, shivering in the warm June weather, and every time I try shifting to the left or right, my legs want to give out and let me drop to the solid ground. I’m hurting everywhere.

I’m sick to my stomach over this. In not only the way one should be when someone you love passes away, but also because I’m angry. Violently so. I haven’t been back to the cemetery since Alexis’s funeral. I simply haven’t been able to do it. Hell, I haven’t been to visit my husband’s grave out of guilt that has me wrapped so tight I can barely breathe. I’m a horrible person. Breathing hurts. Especially when I’m surrounded by my family, who is no longer here to breathe with me.

“Would you like to place a few flowers on their graves?” Heidi slings her arm around my shoulders and hands me four white roses. My shaky fingers take them, and without saying more, she steps back away from me. The comfort of her by my side is an effective dose of reality. I don’t want to be alone.

Heidi is unlike me in every way. Where I keep things bottled up inside until I shatter, she’s a pusher. A live wire. A pull-your-blinds-wide-open kind of woman, grab-you-by-your-ankle-and-jerk-you-right-out-of-bed-until-you-land-on-the-floor type of girl.

That’s what she did to me this morning when I refused to get up. My back is bruised, too. Bitch.

“You’ll feel better if you do it.” Her voice sounds sincere from behind me. When I don’t move, she’s there beside me as her hand goes to my shoulder and gives me a delicate squeeze.

No. I doubt I will feel better ever again. She wouldn’t be saying that if she knew how overflowing my bottle of guilt really is. However, if I want to get out of here, I should do what she says, or she’ll be grabbing hold of my ear and tugging me behind her.

“I love you, Grandma; I promise I’ll do my best to try and smile. I’ll find a way to live like you wanted me to. I’m not sure how just yet. I’m guessing all of you are up there discussing what it is you think I should do.” I try to lift the corners of my mouth. They won’t budge. I hope I can stick to my promises one day, whether I want to or not. Right now, I don’t.

The last couple of months of her life, she had a few meetings with her lawyer. I figured my grandmother went to talk to him about what to do with the money she had made from the sale of her business. I didn’t care about what she did with it. It was hers. So, I waved her out the door and went back to developing my pictures when she mentioned those meetings. I didn’t give it a second thought. Until now.

Hunter Daly, her lawyer, is a name she hadn’t brought up to me in years. For good reason. He’s the godfather of the man who promised me he would be home for dinner. Only, that man never came home at all. His body left this earth, while his soul remains in my heart. I take a few deep breaths. I can’t think of him right now, or I’ll completely fall apart. I miss him all the time. And yet, here I am, and my mind can’t stop thinking about him no matter how hard I try.

Blake was substantially the most attractive man I had ever met. His perfectly molded face was heightened with a strong, masculine jaw, perfectly angled nose, full lips, and the longest lashes on a man I had seen. His dark hair was constantly messy from me running my hands through it.

No one is perfect, but to me, he was. He barreled into my life at the right time. I had finally felt Lady Luck was on my side, and she was. He was impossibly beautiful, exceptionally kind, and blew every sexual fantasy I had out of this atmosphere.

It all changed in the blink of an eye. The man I love, the man I married, is dead along with the rest of the people I love. There are days when I feel like there is no me without him, no life to live after I lost the love we shared. He was my all, and existing when he no longer is has destroyed my heart in a way it will never heal.