What I have been doing lately: I was lying in bed and the doorbell rang.  I ran downstairs.  Quick.  I opened the door.  A man stood on there with a look that said he had done this a hundred times before.  He informed me that my father had passed away.  A stone cold feeling invaded me.  I wasn’t sure what to feel.  He apologized and left, leaving me to my thoughts.

            The next few days where spent with my anguished mother preparing for his funeral.  Still, I barely felt anything.  Just a gaping hole.  I could not cry.  I could not feel anything else.  My boyfriend tried to comfort me but, now more than ever, I seemed more distant.  I tried to shut myself away, to remember where it all went wrong.

            While I was at the funeral: Family members from both sides of the family had come to mourn over the loss of my father.  My mother seemed to get the most attention, but I only shook hands with several people and they offered their condolences to me.  I guess this was because I had brought shame to the family, to my father’s name.  Either that, or my mother was just more distraught than I was.  Whatever it was, the fact remained the same.  I was not welcome there.

            What made it even worse was that my boyfriend had been there too.  Whenever people weren’t talking behind our backs, they were staring resentfully at us.  Their glares seemed heavy. 

            After the preacher finished his sermon, we all gave our final goodbyes.  When I reached my father’s casket, I looked into the face of the man I had known all my life, now withered old with age.  The man who had always been there for me when I was down or needed support.  The man who would take time out of his busy schedule to spend time with me.  The man who taught me how to play baseball, spent camping trips and fishing trips in the mountains, took me down to Riley’s every Sunday for chocolate sundaes, bought me my first bicycle and taught me to ride it.

            The man who I argued with in my teens.  My music offended him.  My clothes offended him.  My life choices offended him.  When I told him I was gay he shut me out.  Said it was unnatural.  Our last argument had been about that.  It all seems a blur now but I do remember a lot of expletives thrown and a lot of things said I wish I could’ve taken back.  Too late now.

            Staring into his casket, his face pallid and void, I remembered the last phone call he made.  He called to say he was sorry.  He didn’t say why but I think I know why now.  He also told me that he loved me and there was nothing I could do that would change that. 

            My boyfriend put a loving hand on my shoulder, as if to say everything was going to be alright.  A single tear coursed down my cheek.  I no longer felt nothing.  I felt alone.

            What I am doing now: I’m standing beside my father’s grave. I am thinking of all these things with a gaping hole in my heart and bunch of flowers in hand.