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Normal funerals take a week or so to organize.

Since the bodies of my mom and dad weren’t going home, and since my dad’s body had already been held in the morgue for so long, the funeral home allowed me to bury my parents a few days after my mom passed in the hospital. We weren’t doing a big viewing or even having many people in attendance. We didn’t have any special pallbearers. Just me, Chelsea, my aunt as well as the young men provided by the funeral home. My aunt reminded me to give them a cash tip at the end of the service.

Apparently, that was best practice. Tip the workers who help bring your parents to the hole in the ground. Noted.

The place for the viewing was basic. The smallest room they had. And it felt small. Even though there were only about eight of us. Myself and Chelsea included.

There were angel figurines—everywhere. On the walls, behind the glass cabinetry, on the TV screens as the little video of my mom and dad played on repeat for the “guests.” We compiled a few images from throughout the years: their wedding, my birth vlog, some special family vacations and events with some of the relatives. Nothing huge. What they don’t tell you is how annoying it becomes, to hear the same song, same video, just looping for an hour or more as people approach you with “I am sorry for your loss” and “I’ll be praying for you.”

Chelsea addressed most of the spectators for me. Which, granted, were few. I was silent. I was actually ready to leave this place and go home.

The thought of home caught me off guard, and the replaying of Like a Bridge Over Troubled Waters hit harder for some reason, even though I had heard the song ten times already.

And then the tears came.

Because home wasn’t the same anymore.

Home was a silent four walls and collection of empty rooms that I’d have to sell. Home was no longer a place of memories, but a reminder of loss.

I stood by my mother’s casket with Chelsea, and my aunt was at the side of my father’s. We went with the bare minimum with their casket selections, since we were purchasing an expensive stone for them both to share. I had room on the stone for special engravings, and it was hard to think of one, to be honest. I put what I knew:

Mom, you were my forever friend. You were my biggest cheerleader.

I’ll love and miss you forever.

Dad, you were every little girl’s dream. You were my rock.

I’ll love and miss you forever.

Underneath their combination stone, in the center of the heart:

Eternal love together in Heaven.

My mom got a set of flowers. My father got his cross. I got a payment plan for the bill. No interest for twelve months.

No one talks about how the people you loved don’t look like themselves anymore. How their faces sink in upon themselves. How their mouths are stretched entirely too thin, too wide. How stiff they are.

And cold.

Or how seeing the hole meant to bury them seems so final.

A part of me stayed there—in the hole with their corpse. Even though my mind understood that they weren’t physically “there” anymore. The moment still took a piece of me. And that piece would never fully return. Or repair itself.

I thought the ceremony was pretty quick. I wasn’t sure when, but sometime during the burial process, the day began to hit me in flashes. Caskets lowered into the ground. My hand clenched the fistful of dirt and I released it with a thud over wooden coffins. I threw a rose. The pastor read a prayer. Guests said some final goodbyes.

I blinked and I was back at a hotel with Chelsea.

I blinked and a full plate of food sat in front of me.

I blinked and I was crying in the shower. Screaming in the shower.

I blinked and I was hugging my aunt at the airport. She said she’d check on the stone in a few days.

I blinked and the plane was landing. Home sweet home.

But no matter how many times I blinked…

I couldn’t seem to wake up from this nightmare.