Mourning

[Zen]

[DASH=White]

In my culture, mourning is so very different from the Western culture. Instead of wearing black, we wear white robes with hoods. We go to a temple to mourn the passing of a life and we have monks come to the home, bless it and play loud music to keep the spirits and demons away. A procession of family members and friends will walk through the town to take the deceased to their grave - you can see even seen this happen in Chinatown, San Francisco. When the casket is lowered to the ground, everyone is told to turn away from the body because facing the casket is telling the spirit that you want it stay, thus giving it a way to come back to the real world as a ghost.

But this is just the way my culture mourns. I know everyone mourns differently, and about different things or people. They do it with tears, with anger, and sometimes with flame.

So here is your exercise:

Write a passage of mourning, it can be something from real life, a character witnessing someone else's death, or the death of a pet. You can even mourn the destruction of something inanimate, like a home burning down.

Length doesn't matter, content does.​

[/DASH]

 

[redblood]

Re: Writing Exercise: Mourning

The coffin was opened, he looked so peaceful in it. It was hard to believe that he had been dead for a week. Anya held back the tears even though every other woman were crying. She had already promised him after all, she would not cry for his death. He believed in a after life and his soul would be free when he died. That's why he didn't want people to cry for him. Still everyone did.

Anya rose up from her seat and walked towards the coffin.
"Your husband has a tumor"
The words echoed in her head. He had died not long after they got to know about the tumor. Everyday he had told her that he were afraid of dying, that he didn't want to leave. But at his last day alive he had looked at her and smiled.
"I'm not afraid anymore."
The words echoed as she looked down at her dead husband, had he told her that just to stop her from crying? But he seemed so peaceful in the moment before his death, it didn't feel like a lie.
"Don't cry for me, I will go to a better place."
The tears started to run down her cheeks as she laid a rose on his chest. She had tried not to cry since he died, but it was impossible not to. But people often told her that it would feel better if she cried, if she just let all the bad feelings out. For the moment it hurt, and it would probably hurt a long time forward. But one day when all the pain had gotten washed away with the thousands of tears she had cried, then she would feel happy again.
"I love you." She heard his voice over and over again. Memories that would never fade.

Later that day when the coffin was buried in the earth, Anya held the pendant that had belonged to her husband. He had never taken it off, he didn't feel safe if he didn't wear it. As the earth slowly covered the coffin Anya kissed the pendant and dropped it down on the part of the coffin that still were visible. She had given it to him when they first met each other, and now she gave it to him again. As a promise. She believed that if he held onto it even after death, then he held onto her.
"I love you." She whispered, one day they would meet again.

 

[Daniella_Belli]

Re: Writing Exercise: Mourning

This exercise was a toughy, although it is a subject matter I am all familiar with in my writings. I hope it is an enjoyable read.


Woeful eyes were dimmed under the shade of the umbrella. She wore but an unadorned,depressing raiment, her flesh enveloped of the shadows that had also enwrapped her soul. As she watched the darkening clouds gathering,and with the fertilizer of her grief, the buds of black floral stains sprouted upon her heart, only to wither and die. she had placed a bouquet of crimson roses upon the coffin. The closing of the lid symbolized that her lover would then forever be worlds apart. Her tears became like salty whips, lashing at her already stinging cheeks. The funereal sky above seemed to emulate her lacrimation, tearing open to weep upon the world below.

She clutched the umbrella's handle tightly, her watery gaze observed that there were no other attendants at her beloved's burial. How many others were shut away, their remains forever confined to nothing more than a box and the earthen beds they would spend eternity without the gathering of those they loved to send them off? Then, a few rays of sunlight seemed to conquer the darkness, shining upon the water logged roses as if to shed hope upon her despair. When they dried, upon the petals gathered butterflies with wings a golden hue. She found it within herself to reveal a slight smile, even through a desolate situation.

The words of the solemn eulogy were drowned out by her own thoughts, and as the wings of the butterflies had unfurled, time seemed to cease for merely a moment, lingering only so that she could try to grasp for the opportunity that had been placed before her. She thought that if she were to weave her prayers upon the intricate threads that collectively would produce masterful tapestries so enriched of brilliance and splendor, that the Gods would envy their beauty; She could petition to any deity that would hear the wants of a mortal to bring back her betrothed, whole in body, mind and spirit. They rode the subtle air current then, slowly ascending toward the heavens. But, a sudden wound tore in the sky, imbued of her inner pain, rain and wind pelted their wings.

Her invocations were cleansed of the delicate insects, their wings enfeebled and becoming as fragile as dried out parchment, that was virginal of a writing hand. They fell to the earth in death. Shackled of her anguish, her heart sundered of the blade that struck it, and she fell upon the coffin lost of mortality. Her lovelorn spirit would evermore live this day, cursed keep vigil by his burial plot for all time. Her tears would fall to the earth until there was nothing more of her, her husk of a body hardening into an ever wistful keepsake at his grave.

 

[GreenLady]

Re: Writing Exercise: Mourning

For this writing exercise I'm taking a character from my book and writing a scene for him, that I have been too nervous to include in the novel...Hope ya'll like it!


David slammed his fist against the tree. He winced at the pain, glad for it...it brought him out of the depression and back towards an anger he was familiar with. His black hair was slick and wet against his head as the rain continued to pour, almost as if it too was mourning the passing of his father. His father had been dead for almost a year, according to his companion, the girl that had been his father's apprentice. "WHY??!!" He screamed in anguish, not really wondering why his father had given his son up for a girl he didn't know. He really did not have to ask himself that anymore, he had learned why shortly after joining the girl on her quest. Words he had feared to express welled up inside him and rushed out. "Why didn't you come back for me? Didn't you love me?" David sank to his knees, closing his green eyes as tears threatened to spill over. He was ashamed that he could not even find his father's body, that he had been to angry to find it and bury it sooner.

Sobs wracked the teens body and David pounded the freshly dug earth with his fists. "You were supposed to be there for me!" He would rather feel the anger towards his father and the Maker that had wrenched him away. He feared sinking into the spiraling dark recesses of grief that he was sure to fall into if he was not careful. "You were supposed to be there for mother!" He roared to the sky, the canopy of trees not preventing the rain from falling on his face. David clenched his hands into fists and broke down, unable to deny the true depth of his grief. "I missed you every day that you were gone...I looked up to you and wanted to be you..." he cried as he fell face first into the dirt.

David ignored the stares of the woman standing some distance away. His companion, love, and father's apprentice...He knew she would be crying openly now...no matter how strong she was, she had a grief almost as profoundly deep as his. He pounded the earth with his hands, blaming his father for leaving her alone, for leaving him alone, and for leaving his mother to pass before him. As soon as the anger welled up, he regretted it...the grief was stronger....