Chartreuse Satin

It was a grey morning. That's so typical, isn't it? My father's funeral was on a grey morning. Everything was in shades of grey, even the freshly cut grass looked devoid of colour.  And it was raining. A cool, calming drizzle. This was probably my dad's message.

"It'll be alright Katy, everything will be alright." Then he'd pull me into his arms, and stroke my forehead softly with his cool, soothing fingers.

But today he was wrong. Nothing was going to be alright. He was gone, my father, my daddy, the only person in my life that really ever loved me was dead in the ground. Those cool and gentle fingers now icy, and stiff with rigor mortis, forever resting on chartreuse satin. What the hell kind of name for a colour is chartreuse, anyway? My aunt picked it out, she said he would have liked it. She was wrong. He would've liked to be on the beach, writing cryptic messages in the sand, or reading in a cafe, a black coffee sitting half-empty on the table in front of him, an expression on his face that practically screamed troubled artist. He would've rather been anywhere but in a box, cold and dark, the joy of life no longer his.

This was what brought the tears. Not that he was dead, so much as that the world had been robbed of his magic, his energy, his voracious appetite for happiness. I had a feeling that everything would look grey to me from now on.

It had actually been sunny that day. It was beautiful, I don't remember a better day. We'd gone for ice cream, and we laid on the shore, with I watching the clouds and him reciting poetry while we enjoyed the warmth from the sun. It was only a week ago, and already it feels like 10 years have passed.