Sympathy

I waited at the kitchen table as she answered the phone. Melanie's phone was old, the type that attached to the wall and had a long curly cord that allowed only so many feet away from the base. I felt intrusive as I overheard her side of the conversation.



It was mostly formal, polite but not quite warm. Then her voice dropped suddenly, becoming so soft that it was nothing more than the fuzzy sound you hear when you brush your fingers across a rough piece of fabric. Her conversation was less than two minutes long, but she didn't return to the table immediately.



The click of the phone being set back into place was obvious, yet she remained there for several minutes. I quickly grew impatient and my obnoxious habits that I tried so hard to suppress started up involuntarily. My index finger tapped against the table. My toes clacked against the chair I was sitting in. I began to count the tiles across the floor.



She eventually returned, her posture had changed and her face sagged with an unreadable expression. I immediately stopped my incessant tapping, clacking, and counting. Silently, she took her seat. Her gaze didn't meet my own.



Becoming worried, I cleared my throat to catch her attention. She shook her head as if she had been in a cloud of fog. Settling her eyes on me, she asked, "Would you like something to drink?"



Before I could respond, her face contorted and her body conveyed a sorrow greater than I had ever seen before. Her eyes watered, tears slowly escaping, then rapidly falling. Her body slouched forward as her torso convulsed with each wretched sob.



I felt the urge to ask her what was wrong, but realization struck harder than a bolt of lightening. It was Maggie, her sister. I moved across the table, wrapping my arms around her shoulders, comforting her in the only way I knew how. Undoubtedly, it didn't help much.



~*~



I had never met Maggie. I knew of her, though, and that was enough to earn me a respected seat at the funeral. I had never felt like a stranger in so many ways before. Melanie was the only person I knew, but she was too overwhelmed with grief to be much of a familiar face.



Melanie and Maggie had been really close. They had shared everything. They experienced everything together. They were only away from each other for three months. Maggie had always wanted to see the world. However, because of their financial situation, she settled for seeing as many states she could before the summer ended.



Melanie would have went along with her, had it not been for her uncle's shop. Her uncle had recently became ill and needed someone to tend to the shop for him. It was one of the strangest little stores a person would ever see. There wasn't a specific purpose of the shop, other than making money, of course.



Anyway, the service was lovely. I sat in the back and kept to myself. Every once in a while Melanie would turn around and glance this way or that way, then before getting a chance to actually see anything or anyone she turned back to the front. I had a feeling that she was still trying to comprehend that what happened was real. That she was really sitting at Maggie's funeral. I always imagined funerals as surreal. No one there really had come to terms with what had happened, not yet anyway.



As it would be, every time she turned around I would catch a glimpse of the sorrow that was flashing on her face more obviously than that of a billboard sign. I tried to empathize but I had never lost anyone before.



For me, it felt more like watching a movie. One of those sad films. The kind where you can't help but relate to the main character. Then something tragic happens and you see how struck with grief they are and you automatically cry along with them.



You feel the same ache in your chest that you imagine they feel. Your throat constricts, your breathing becomes labored, and the tears fall. You watch them suffer and writhe on the floor in pain. The eeriest feeling consumes you just as the credits begin to roll.



Helplessness. You realize there was nothing you could have done. That there was no way you could have lessened their pain. All you could do is watch and be  there. In the end, you know that the only thing you come out feeling was moved. Moved by their tragedy. Moved because sympathy only lasts for so long.