The suffering Christ sags heavily from his bronze cross above the altar. To his left his mother still weeps, her tears frozen in prisms of blood-red stained glass. They’ve both seen it all before—so many times.
Miguel lies hidden in his adolescent-sized coffin.
The father, Guido, is seated several rows in front of me. All I can see of him is a hunched back and bowed shiny balding head, fringed with tufts of curling grey hair. I’m glad I can’t see his face as I might feel compassion or pity for him. Today I want my anger.
Beside Guido is Maria, his wife and Miguel’s mother. Her sobbing is mute, betrayed only by the convulsive shuddering of her black-shrouded back.
Somniferous music plays softly in the background as the church fills with mourners, many friends from his school.
Beside me, Sonya mops at her tears with a now soggy tissue. She’s a first-year graduate social worker and Miguel is her first loss.
Only last week Sonya had brought him to the door of my office to introduce us. ‘Anne, this is Miguel. Miguel, this is my boss.’
He’d smiled shyly, pushing back the locks of wavy hair that had escaped to hang over his eyes. He was handsome and wholesome in his school uniform of grey trousers and matching shirt, maroon blazer and shiny black shoes. I can still picture him there outside my office.
I can see, too, the blood and brain spattered wall in his father’s study where he shot himself with his father’s gun three days later.
Nothing he did was ever good enough for you Guido, was it?—but you wouldn’t listen.
Burnside Writers Group 