Tipsy Lit Prompt: Family Traditions

This week’s Tipsy Lit prompt was to write about a family tradition that’s changed. I used that as inspiration and went rogue. Here’s my fictional story, titled The Wake. 

Mom walked toward the front of the room, down an aisle lined on each side with rows of folding metal chairs. The kind that always made froze my little butt. She was gripping my hand and dragging me along with her. I didn’t fight. I didn’t know to fight. We were in a long line of people, dressed in dark clothes, tissues in hand and dabbing at the corners of their eyes.

A lone, sad voice warbled it’s way through “Danny Boy” in a room of huddled silence. A box was up in front of us. A long, wooden one. The top was open and lined with a white, slippery-looking fabric like the dress my cousin had worn for First Communion a few weeks before. Was that her dress in the box, I wondered.

People stopped, looked in to the box; their lips moved as if speaking to themselves.  I squirmed around, trying to see anything, to understand.

I was four, and my grandpa had died. Or went somewhere. The way my mom explained it to me, anxious with sadness choking her voice and tears streaming down her face, he could be anywhere.

The line was slowly getting shorter. And we soon approached the front. I still couldn’t see in. I couldn’t see what was in the box. Why everyone was so fascinated by it. What they were talking about. Mom clutched the worn, gold crucifix at her neck and looked down into the box, whispering what I’ve come to realize was a prayer.

“What’s in there, Mommy?” I said.

“Your grandpa, sweety,” she replied.

“What’s he doing in there?'” I asked and brightened. “Is he playing a game?” She didn’t answer but looked down at me sadness and confusion in her face.

“Can I see?” I’m still not sure why, but my Mom agreed. I wonder what was she thinking as she picked me up and showed me a waxy, white figurine of my Grandpa sleeping. But he wasn’t sleeping. I could see that. Tears welled up in the corner of my eyes, and, as my cousin tells it, I started to bawl like nothing any body had ever seen before.

“Wake him up! Wake him up!” I wailed as my Mom panicked and drug me out the side door. My dad was there.

“What happened?” he asked my Mom.

“She wanted to see; I didn’t know what to do,” she said tears streaming down her face again.

“And you thought that would be a good idea?” Mom couldn’t respond to this.  She’d broken down completely and wasn’t able to think to stand, let alone talk.

I’m not terribly proud of this piece. It definitely needs some work, but I’ve wanted to practice my writing more and share my writing more. What do you think?