Three terrifying days erased my past life and propelled me into a new world. People enclose themselves around me, trying to ease the trauma. Strangers and long-forgotten faces flitter past like a reel of film. The film stretches, some frames larger than others while the rest are short, mundane, and forgettable. The ends are sucked into the machine with a soft fwip and I am left with the people that surround me now. In these moments of my life nothing is coated in the thick sugar crystals that padded me from the outside world. Strangers swooped down to my side and built iron supports around me. My legs are enveloped in smooth gunmetal black that forces me to stand, calves cramp with the pain of holding me up but I stand, not even swaying. Now the reel cuts to black and I am on my own. I am slouching with a bent spine, but still I stand, neck aching from holding my leaden head up. Soft notes drift through my ears. They entice me to erect myself. My broad shoulders become twin pillars of strength, my chin is a laser slicing obstacles. The bass thumps pain, a record scratch wails anger, and it sends lightning through my core.

The main room smells like bad incense. The scent has soaked into the dull carpet and dark drapes. It’s humid in the room despite the fact that October air is biting at the windows, wanting to seep in. Black lace digs angry red splotches into my sides. I am a squirming eel in unfamiliar surroundings. Chairs are lined up in three neat groups. They all point to the glazed wooden box in the spotlights up front. The rest of the room is dismally lit. I have to squint to make out faces of people I haven’t seen in years. The ornate beige double doors are open so guests can make their way inside. First, though, they meet the guestbook, flipped open pages past the beginning on account of the vast amounts of people that have came and gone. Their fancy dresses and ironed suits send whispers of expensive fabric across the room. The directors bring out a silky white poodle to the sitting area. The prints on the couches are paisley and floral. Claw feet are accented by thick lacquer. Coffee tables are glass tops with claw feet to match the couches. And the mints. The mints are set in bowls on every surface. Soft mints in white crinkly packages with ruffles edges with the words Walker Funeral Home printed on one side.

I try to ignore the people staring at me, dozens of family members I haven’t talked to in years, who are backed into one side of the room like sheep. I had come to hate these people. I hated how I was a redheaded stepchild because of my mother’s actions. I hated how judgemental they were, picking over bloody details like angry crows swooping over a mushy carcas. They picked their teeth with the bones of other people they destroyed with thoughtless commentary and lackidasal actions. They strut, flaunting money and perfect gym routines, straightening lifeless overprocessed hair and caking on cold creams, even if they were cutting it close with bills and credit card payments. I was as much as a blight to them as they were to me. Nitpicking people who aren’t perfect because they chose to hide it. None of my aunts were raised by their birth father, and the man who raised them had a far off son who was a secret to me. Many of them got married and divorced shortly afterward. They hide money from their husbands so they don’t feel ridiculed for the amount of money they spend on material items. I am a fluffy ewe, frolicking by a pen of black sheep. Their oily fur is misshapen, but their hooves are pearlescent and even. Crocodile eyes, slitted against the light, spill crocodile tears on the drab carpet.

I ignore the sheep in the corner and waltz around the different couches and chairs to sweep mints into my dress pockets. I am biding my time and trying not to talk to anyone who approaches me. People stick their hands in my faces and offer condolences. When I shake their oversized hands, I pretend they don’t have eyes. My closer relatives pull me into hugs and only draw the sympathy card once. I’m working up the courage to go up to the casket. My grandma has been bugging me about it. I’m crawling in my skin at the thought of even a glance at the gray, painted face nestled in the wooden box. My mother awaits my prayers, the white pew glaring at me from in front of her casket. It has groaned every time a guest has kneeled down on the worn leather. And I am only ready when my cousin, my favorite person on this Earth, whom I could wax poetic about for hours on end, has arrived and plants herself by my side. What I see resting on the silky casing and pillow is not my mother. It is an imitation, with the wrong eyebrow color and a sickly face. They have got one thing right, and that is the clothes she wears: casual jeans and a zipped up sweatshirt. Still, this is not the way life was supposed to go. The last way I was supposed to see my mom not as a teenager at a rushed funeral, and I play every moment of my mother in my head.

My mom was an outstanding parent when I was younger. I can still remember being curled in a mountain of blankets as she perched on the edge of my bed. Her voice was vanilla sugar cookie sweet as she sang “My Sunshine” and I drifted up into my head where my brain spun dreams like cotton candy. Pieces of my mom crumbled away like morsels from a delicate dish of dessert. A piece crumbled away when my mother and my father split. She began to raise me and my brother alone. Then she had a third child with a different father whom she eventually split from. My mother tried to give us the world. It tore her apart to work multiple jobs and then try and go to college online. She became a shell of herself. The deep smears of purple under her eyes got darker. Smoking outside became chain smoking all day. My dentist appointments became few and far between. Food in the house became sparse while my mom drifted from one job to the next. I don’t blame my mother. When most people would have thrown in the towel and stepped away, she fought her way through every stage. She threw uppercuts, 1-2 combos, spiraling hooks. My mother was a superstar, stepping into the ring and giving every ounce of herself to us.

October passes and dissolves to a drab November, to a chilled December. I struggle through school and iron myself into the same me. We move in with my stepmom’s parents while waiting for the deal on the house to close. My family make a greater deal to support me. The sheep side of my family make plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I eat oven baked turkey with turkey stuffing and mashed red skin potatoes. I write my Christmas lists, a total of three. One for my grandma, another for my dad and stepmom, and one for my grandpa’s work. I write them all on the same college ruled loose leaf paper, picking different colors of pen for each. For my grandpa’s work we are free to write as much down as we want so they can pick what they can. I run my mind in circles searching for any and all of the most expensive gifts, gifts I have never thought to ask for. High end laptops, gift cards for any and all of my hobbies, little musing I always think would be nice to have. The company grants most of my wishes: the laptop, iPad stylus, $500 for Ikea, three $20 cards for Barnes & Noble, soft blankets, EOS lip balm. All the wants and wonders of a little girl who has turned out on the other side of a treacherous storm. There is also the iPod, this time a Nano to replace the Touch version I had owned.

Apple packages the iPod in a plastic casing that is crystal clear. Underneath you can see the gray and white of the paper and logo. Most noticeable though, is the shining glass screen accented with a metallic casing of gold. Downloading music and loading it onto the meek device is the simple part. Knowing what to pick and choose, dredging up memories of songs I love and songs I haven’t heard in years is harder. My memories come trickling back. There’s me, sitting in the back of my mom’s red car while Jay Sean croons in the background. I remember driving home late at night from parties while Outkast chanted me to sleep. Drake raps a line enough times to make it into a singular identity, and Rihanna cries out her frustrations in radio waves. These songs echo through my head now and I make my escape carefully, weaving around toys scattered on the cloudy laminate floor. The back door creaks when I open it and the blinds smack against the glass. I head toward my little nook in the backyard and start unraveling my magic.

The rubber material tangles easily, so when I pull them out of my pocket they are a indiscernible jumble of white and grey. They are smooth in my hands and when I untangle them I fit each hard plastic ear piece in the coordinating ear. My music library is set on shuffle and when the first song's opening notes fling themselves into my ear canals, I relax. My knee can stop bouncing, my stomach can stop seizing, my lungs can stop trying to wring themselves out like dish towels. My anxiety fades away, retreating like the foamy tide on a gritty beach. The anger I’ve been holding in all day unclenches its iron fist, and I slump back against scratchy cushions. My spine groans when it slumps over, knobby bone poking through my shirt. My feet slide against the moist deck, and the swing squeals its delight when it begins to glide forward and backward. The iPod gets lost between the golden brown cushions, but it still booms music in my skull, reverberating against my brain.

Almost three years have passed since my mother passed away. I have become a different person. While my mother was not an awful parent, she did not teach me much. I no longer have a motherly figure in my life, so anything of that nature is self-taught with videos and online tutorials. I agonized in front of the bathroom mirror for hours trying to twist and work my hair into french braids. My hair reaches gritty ends passed my sloping shoulders after the big chop. Eyelash curler to mascara to the taming spooly, I learn how to do my makeup. I read more now than I have ever. Words explode out of my head and reside on scraps of paper and unedited word documents. Sometimes, I am running when everyone else is walking, and other times I am crawling in the dust behind everyone. I have learned to distract myself with music. My mind can pick apart pieces of a song like fine tooth comb, then I piece the dozens of pieces together and the picture is complete. Body detaches from mind, detaches from nagging thoughts when I plunge earbuds into my ears. When I was younger I could never get myself to slow into a state where I could work through my emotions. I have now conquered that part of myself with the help of my mother.