Alone She Stands

Alone she stands there, surrounded by family and friends. The room is filled to the brim with grieving hearts waiting to burst through the seams of the doors to the outside.
Without the one person that had always stood next to her she is alone, even with the family that brushes by her shoulders and whispers their condolences in hopes to relieve some of her pain, her grief, her hurt.
It's not the same.
Still, she stands alone.
I only know what the pictures tell me. The wedding photo of two young lovers wrapped in each others arms, locked in each others gaze. The two sets of hands on a new born baby boy draped in terry cloth blankets, nestled deep in his mothers bosom. The wrinkled hands feeding each other the sweet homemade cake that only a 50th anniversary could provide.
All of this is gone and now she stands alone.
"He hadn't know me since January 23rd," she told me as she sheepishly stole glances at him. "He lost so much weight that I hardly recognize him, but they made him look really good. He looks real good. Don't he?" Her eyes met mine for a brief moment as she quietly walked into another room full of hard-backed wooden chairs.
She sat in the front row, sandwiched between her remaining son and his wife. With their arms around the top of her frame, her quiet sobs ultimately became silent as the pastor began the service.
"From what I was able to learn about Bob, I would say that he was the definition of a truly great man of God. Death for him was not an end, but rather a beginning of a life we here on Earth can only hope for."
Her shudders of pain quickly turned into nods of affirmation as if thinking to herself, "He was a good man. He is with God. I will see him again. I will not stand alone forever."