The lost years

Ten years old wearing his only suit. A cheap blend with a childrens pattern and a snap on tie. Everyone here was big or bigger than he was even his brother was bigger. One year older n could look at him and say:well at least I'm not the smallest one at the funeral.
Some people had walked up to him. They would have tears in their voices and red eyes. Poor boy they said or be strong or they would lie and say they would be there for him or tell the truth and say how wonderful was the woman in the casket assuming any body was there.
It was a pretty day for winter. There were big oaks and the light showing through them. It had to be winter. The last time he had seen his mother he had been leaving for school. She was brought home to die. His father angry because he did not know what to do said kiss your mother goodbye.  He would never shake himself from the image. The dying woman had no intelligence in her wide open eyes. Her dying body taking short rapid breaths through her open mouth mindlessly.  There could be pain there. She resembled a large fish dying of suffocation more than the woman who had dressed and bathed him and spoke comforting words to him as he walked the short distance she had been able to go the last summer of her life.
He remembered her asking him to rub her back too that summer his small hands trying to take some of the soreness caused by the cancer. He did not know thta at the time, he only knew she felt pain and thought his small hands rubbing her back woudl relieve some of that.  Only a grown man would wonder in vain why her husband did not supply that service that the young boy was happy his mom wanted from him. He was too young for her to explain she was dying.  That was a job left for the fish person.
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