Her lips looked lovely; this was because they had been sewn shut.

She had no deathly pallor, laying in the open coffin, surrounded by white roses. They painted her lips and gave her skin a lovely glow. She looked about my age.

I know all the coroner’s tricks. I’d grown up running around the Funeral Home, a young boy chasing balls and toys between clumps of the grieving.

I used to think that the constant atmosphere of death had made me immune to it. A funeral was a funeral; people died. Part of life.

A draft blew into the church, winding through the aisles, up to where she slept in peace, surrounded by candles. In one moment, they were all blown out.

It hit me all at once. This was a tragedy. A life lost, another flame snuffed out before it even had a chance to burn. Every funeral I’d attended, every corpse I had glimpsed, came rushing back to me in that split second.

I threw my head into my hands and sobbed, a lost little boy in a church. I didn’t stop until long after the congregation left.