But The Heavens Never Cried

"Hello?"  I could hardly understand the person on the other end when I once again, repeated, "Hello?"  The voice was so discomforting my heart started to race.  It appeared as though infinite minutes had passed by.  I tried desperately to make out an extremely distraught voice on the other end.  Without warning, a primordial scream resounded so intensely I nearly dropped the phone.  As if the voice had reverberated in my head a thousand times, garbled words shrieked distinctly,  "Are you sitting down?”  In between sobs of uncontrollable variety, I was barely able to hear the rest of what was being said to me, but I finally registered these words,  "Your brother was murdered."  I was completely and utterly thrown off balance.  I felt as if I was going to pass out.  An enormous wave of nausea came over me so violently I could barely stand up.  My right hand clenched so tightly around the crease in the wall my knuckles had actually turned white.  At that precise moment, I realized my mother was choking for air.  I screamed back, "Who did it?"  My hysteria broke loose.

I knew instantly it was my older brother who had been killed.  My mother was shattered.  Her yells were shockingly agonizing as I hung up.  My heart was vibrating so acutely I placed my left hand over my heart as if to stop the pain.  Kailee started to sob, running to her room.  Emily stood still, in the middle of the kitchen, immobilized with fear from watching me.  Her mouth gaped open.  She was unable to speak.  I began to amble down the hallway, back and forth.  Everything appeared to be nothing.  My pace quickened.  I was walking nowhere, confused, hindered by my shock.  Up and down, walking as if a force was pressing me forward but totally and completely lost, simultaneously.  I became utterly oblivious to my once responsibilities.  I was thoroughly lost in a space I did not comprehend.  It was as though I was watching myself from a distance, yet I could not jolt myself back.  My pace quickened to the point where I could literally feel the pounding of my heart once again protruding out onto my chest.  In that split second, I could hear sobbing coming from the back of the house.  I remembered my children.  I ran to my daughters' room, finding them both huddled together on one bed.  Their pain and their fear became foremost.  Weeping, we held tightly around each other.  We rocked back and forth for what seemed like an eternity.