Today I stand by this grave with a heavy heart. As I hold back these tears, the pain in my stomach doesn't compare to the ache in my heart. I wish I had listened all those years ago, but I didn't. Now I look down at the coffin where my father lies, wishing I could turn back time. I killed him. I have no right to even be here. I should not even be allowed this one day. The jail cell should be my permanent home. How could I have allowed things to get so out of hand?

"Carla, I'm so sorry for your loss," says Aisha, my childhood best friend. It is so nice to see her again. I can't help feeling a sense of envy as I look at her and think of how different our lives are. She was the perfect daughter and the perfect student and is now a teacher. I was just the perfect bum. She must be one of the few people who is sorry for my loss. Many others attending the funeral look at me with contempt. I know they must be blasting me in their minds, saying, "You murderer. If it weren't for you, Patrick would still be alive right now."

Aisha is exactly what I should have been. She is the daughter my parents would have been proud of. Here she is, the only person at my father's funeral who is civil to me.

As all those eyes penetrate me, I wish I was the one lying in that grave. Then maybe, just maybe, there would be a few people—family members and friends—who would cry for me, mourn for me. Then there would be no condemnation. It is nice to have at least one pair of kind eyes, those of Aisha.

Despite the wind swirling through the leaves and branches, it is humid. It is summer, and you could say the flames of hell are upon me. There had been a request for cheerful colors, but all I could feel inside me was darkness, so I wore black as usual—a nice, black cotton suit with a jacket and skirt. The sun is down, but there is still a heat that penetrates deep within my heart. There is no cooling down for me.

            How typical it is that the guests at the funeral are led by the pastor in singing "Amazing Grace." I always wonder what makes it an appropriate funeral song. I can't sing it, though, because not a word of it speaks truth to my life. I am a wretch not yet saved; a soul lost with no guarantee of ever being found; and I was never blind, but had always seen life's harshest realities.

Lowering my father's coffin into the ground, that is something to which I can better relate. I am already there. They might as well throw me in alive and bury me. I am the living dead. My body is alive, but my spirit is dead. Or at least it seems to be. I stand aside from the crowd and watch my father be put to rest. My mother weeps openly, but somehow I can't find the strength to walk over to her to console her. I am in enough pain myself. The multitudes are there to comfort her, anyway. No one would have comforted me. From time to time, Aisha looks across at me, her eyes filled with care. That is fine with me. I'm sure she wants to extend a hug, also, but without even saying it, we both know that would only draw more mean stares toward me.

Today I say goodbye to my father but wish I could go as well.