Chapter 65 - Friends Will Be There When Nobody Else Won’t

Everyone told her how sorry they were for her loss but none of them asked her how she was or how hard it was for her to take care of her father during his illness.

They told her that they would be there in case she needed to talk but I was sure Joanna knew they didn't mean it.

She walked next to the grave and cleared her voice before giving her speech, the silence fell in the room and everyone set their gazes on the floor.

Joanna traveled her gaze to me and I smiled at her to send her the support she probably needed. 

She took a deep long breath and again tears filled her eyes. 

"I didn't have time to write a speech so..." she cleared her voice once again, flustered and miserable.

"Is there even something to say? I guess you already know how much I love you." She wiped her tears off looking at the sky.

"Still, I want to thank you because our bond was even deeper than the normal father-daughter bond. Because even if a terrible illness was slowly taking you away from me day after day you never stopped showing me your love and staying strong for me. I didn't have many friends nor people I cared about but I didn't mind because I had you and you were worth all them put together and I didn't need anyone other than you." She kept wiping off the tears from her cheek and forced a smile. 

Her voice creaked and trembled, the sadness was probably blurred her sight since she rubbed her eyes with a handkerchief.

"I don't know if you can hear me or see me. But I know that you're proud of me. Just remember that every smile I make, every beat my heart makes, and every happy moment I live belong to you. Because you will always be my happiness and my reason to keep going. I will never be grateful enough for that, dad. I love you so much."

She then placed the bouquet on the coffin and kneeled down to kiss it as tears fell down his eyes fastly.

"You will always be in my heart." She concluded her speech and went back to sit next to me, I stretched my hand and offered her a supportive smile, she held it.

Few other relatives gave their speech and in about one hour we were back at her house.

She spent the following hours crying, she started to cry as soon as we crossed the door of the douse.

Then she sat on the floor and snuggled around her knees, "this is why I was postponing this day. Because I have to face the reality and that he is gone." She sobbed.

I hugged her caressing her back, "I know." 

The next day we took our flight to come back to Manhattan and Joanna felt a bit better, she was still quiet but at least she didn't cry anymore. She used my should as her pillow for the whole length of the flight and then when we arrived home she said she was tired and went to laid down.

Meantime I placed the stuff in her suitcase in the closets in her room and made some pasta for dinner. 

As I cooked my phone rang and when I checked it I saw a message from Cameron.

'Can't wait to spend the weekend with you. Hope Joanna is okay. Have a good day.'

I smiled at that message, maybe he asked Simon why I took the day off. I couldn't wait to spend a few days with him as well. 

Seeing that message cheered me up even more. 

I replied to the message right away, 'can't wait to see you on the weekend too. Thank you for your concern.'

His gestures were small yet he never failed to show me how much he cared about me. Carl didn't even care to get to know my friends and I was sure if we had been still together he wouldn't have sent me a text.

Yet Cameron didn't know Joanna but he probably deduced how important she was for me and took a few seconds of his busy day to let me know he was there for me. 

We ate two toasts and remain in silence. I always thought silence was underestimated, in my family as we grew up my mother always hated silence. She thought that if we shut up that meant that we were mad, sad, or nervous and always talked about random conversations to avoid silence in the family.

As I grew I understood that silence is important and sometimes it meant even more than words.

Joanna gazed down at the floor probably thinking of her father and quietly grieving for him and I just said there next with her. In case she wanted to speak I was there and if she didn't I was there anyway. 

"I will go to sleep then." She said after a while.

I nodded, "if you can't sleep please feel free to wake me up." 

She hugged me, "thank you, I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Me either," I whispered.

The hug lasted a few minutes then she walked back to her room. 

I made some tea and sat on the sofa, I didn't turn the tv on so I could hear her in case she called me. 

But she never called me, so I went to my room and started to pack the suitcase for the weekend off. I found some beautiful dresses that I hadn't worn in a while and I put those in the suitcase. I added some body lotion and some make-up in case we went to some special place.

The excitement of seeing Cameron for two days in a row made me smile in excitation as I packed up.. I even struggled to fall asleep because I was mentally thinking about how to match the outfits for the neck days.