Capture the Wind for Me
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Prologue
© Copyright 2002 by Brandilyn Collins.
Used by permission of Broadman & Holman Publishers.
Available at your local bookstore or by calling 1(800)251-3225.

I remember how even the sky mourned with us, hanging in shades of gray, chilled and fitful. How the wind moaned through the red-leaved trees in the cemetery. I was only fourteen. Nature’s sorrow seemed right to me, for surely the world could not go on as usual, undisturbed and blithe, in the face of our tragedy. Vaguely, I wondered if others in my family shared the same transcendent thoughts.

Now at twenty I know they did. Seems to me such self-absorption is common to the grieving. Every act of nature shouts our loss—the merest drop of rain a tear for the deceased, a stream of sunshine hailing some bright memory.

My family and I huddled together, trembling more in soul than body, as we faced my mama’s casket. White and gleaming, it rested on wide strips of green fabric above an open and hungry grave.

“Should we lower it?” the funeral director quietly asked.

No!

Daddy’s cheek muscles froze, tears glistening in his red-rimmed eyes. He nodded.

The wizened cemetery worker stretched gnarled hand to metal gear and started cranking. Chink, chink. Chink, chink. Slowly, the casket began to descend.

Daddy gripped my shoulder, grief bubbling in his throat. My brother, Robert, age ten, leaned against me, solemn, wooden. Chink, chink. Seven-year-old Clarissa clutched her coat around her, as if to wrap herself against the sound. I watched the bottom of the casket disappear, the blunt cliff of earth edge up its side.

Mama, I cried. Mama!

Memories pierced me like shards of glass. Saturday morning pancakes. Softball game cheers. Suppertime laughter. The way she hugged Daddy. Our talks of first love.

Cancer. Pain. Dulling eyes. Final words.

Lifeless head on a satin pillow.

Chink, chink.

Grandma Westerdahl wailed for her daughter.

The top of the casket disappeared. Still the man cranked. An errant leaf, brittle and worn, skittered across the ground to snag on his wrist. As if to say Stop! Stop your turning; crank the other way, up and up. Turn back time! He flicked the leaf away.

Chink, chink. Chink, ch—

Silence, save for the wind. The man rocked back on his heels, task done.

The ceremony was complete. Time now for us to go home. To leave Mama behind. My mind numbed. I could not grasp it—my mama’s warm brown eyes, her voice, her love, her life now stiffened, silenced. Covered by a casket, soon by soil. Her light, her dreams, her energy—a sputtering candle now spent.

We stood, bewildered refugees, staring sightlessly at the open earth.

Grandpa Delham put his arm around Daddy. Grandma Delham reached for Clarissa, but my little sister pulled away. Carefully, she inched to the edge of the grave, then peered down. I can still see Clarissa, her blue coat flapping against lace-topped socks, her weight tilting forward on one foot, neck craned. I knew she had to see the casket, had to have a mental picture to take with her, to remember after dirt covered all.

Grandpa Westerdahl held his sobbing wife.

Clarissa took her time, then sidled back to us, bleary-eyed and pale. Daddy grasped her hand.

I, too, had to see. Approaching the grave as if pulled by an unseen hand, I braced myself and looked down. Expectation did not lessen the shock. The pure white of the casket screamed against black earth. I reminded myself that Mama was not really there. That her soul flew in heaven, hovered at Jesus’ feet.

Little comfort the thought gave me.

We had to leave. I had a family to take care of—a grief-stricken father, siblings who needed a mama. God, I cried, I can’t do this!

I took a step back, willing myself to say goodbye to Mama. Willing it and willing it. Somehow I managed a second step. A third. Then I forced myself to turn around. Rejoined my family. I hugged Robert, slipped my fingers around Daddy’s arm. Clarissa still held his other hand.

As a group, we began to make our wearied way toward the car. To our home and life—without Mama. I clutched onto Daddy and trudged forward, even as my mind screamed I can’t leave her, I can’t leave her, I can’t leave her! I told myself to not look back. That I had to go on, all of us did. That my family needed me to be strong. I focused on my feet, one step at a time. Forward.

But a piece of my heart jagged loose and took a manic leap down the grave.