Letting Go

Chapter Fourteen

"Caitlin!" I yelled. "Where are you?" I continued. I was running through the long corridor that lead to her hospital room. I heard a faint cry in her room. I walked inside but she was nowhere to be seen. I slumped onto her now empty bed. "Where are you?" I sobbed. I felt a feather light hand gently stoke my back. I turned frantically to see who it was.
She sat in the blueish white dress she wore for her Confirmation service last year. She hardly ever wore dresses and that was the only time I ever saw her looking girly. She was beautiful, her long black hair that she inherited from her father, her large emerald eyes that sparkled when she was in the sun. "I was looking for you" I told her as I wrapped my arms around her. "I'm right here" she replied. "I'll always be with you" she touched my cheek with the side of her finger.
"If you ever need me I'll be here" she took my hand and placed it on my heart. She got up and began to walk.
"No! Don't go, wait!" I shouted but it was too late. She blew me a kiss and she was gone. "Caitlin!" I screamed.

I woke up in a cold sweat, breathing heavily. For a second I thought things were still normal but then reality came crashing down on me. She was gone, forever.

Today was the funeral and I still hadn't written anything. I got up and sat at my desk. I opened my laptop and began to type

"These past few days have been a struggle, getting up in the morning even took effort" I began

By 7:40 I had completed writing the whole eulogy. My mom came in with mug of coffee surprised to see me out of bed.

"You're up early" she said placing a kiss on my forehead.

"Had a nightmare, I couldn't fall back asleep." I told her.

"You want to talk about it?" She asked stroking my back in the same fashion Caitlin did in the dream. I shook my head and got up.

"I think we need to get ready." I shooed her out the room so I could shower and find something to wear.
I went over the speech while I soaped myself saying key points out loud.

When choosing something to wear I had to bear in mind that Mr Ryan had asked us to wear something blue. Even though we don't wear uniform blue and white are still our school colours, it just so he happened to be Caitlin's favourite colour.

Once I was fully dressed I went down to the kitchen and poured some coffee for myself. I sat down on one of the kitchen stools by the counter.

"Mom!" I yelled.

"Mom we've got to go. We're gonna be late." Mom soon emerged down the stairs in a baby blue pencil skirt paired with a blue and white diamond checkered cardigan. Someone seriously went all out on the color scheme.

"Mom, you do know that only those who go to my school have to wear blue." I said to her as if it weren't obvious.

"I know" was her reply, as she put the kettle on to make herself a cup of tea.

"You know I spoke to Debby, she said that you don't have to say something if you don't want to." My mom said as she sat down opposite me.

"Don't worry about it, I have something." I told her.

"Can I hear it?" Mom asked.

"You will"
                             ________________________

The church was half empty when we got there. Debby, John and Spencer stood at the open casket staring at the floorboards when we walked in. My mom went to hug each one of them and I followed suit. When I got to Spencer he wouldn't move an inch when I tried to hug him and didn't even look me in the eye.

My mom saw my uncomfortableness and steered me away to sit in the third row of the church.

"You always reserve the first two rows for family only" she told me. I nodded and sat down on the aisle seat.

Pastor Mac introduced himself and said a few words about Caitlin before he called up her Aunt Carol to the podium.

"Caitlin was my favourite niece she was everything to me. My therapist, my janitor" that got a few laughs. "She was my grammar Nazi, she was like a sister to me but most of all she was my friend." She carried on ending it off with a poem by Maya Angelou that Spencer said with her.

He stood up there trying to suppress the pain he felt. She gave him a hug before going to sit back with the family.

"Rest in peace, sweetheart" she said through the flood of tears that were pouring out of her eyes and down her cheeks as she walked past the casket and took her seat next to her Dad.

"We will now have a representative from Caitlin's school who will say a few words." Spencer glanced my way checking to see if it was me. It wasn't, the school hadn't approached me to ask if I would speak. Debby did. I went up with the representative and stood by her side. Even though she was unaware of me speaking as well, she went with it.

I recognized her from school. She was the student leader of film society which was the only club Caitlin took apart of.

"Caitlin. What a girl" she began.
She spoke of Caitlin the student, not friend. She spoke about all her good traits as a student but not as a person. In the middle of her speech she paused, I thought she was gathering her thoughts not registering her contorted, red face as the face of someone who was crying. I didn't know what to do, I wasn't good at dealing with crying people. Mr Ryan came up to the podium to escort the red faced girl off the stage.

I stepped forward and spoke into the mike.

"I struggled to find the right words to say to you today" I began. "There's so much I would like to say in such a short time. I could stand up here and tell you about all of her good traits or what I'm going to miss about her or even why I'm going to miss her." I paused. "But I won't, because anyone who knew her even a little bit you knew what an amazing person she was. Someone who was always smiling or laughing be it with you or at you. Most likely at you. An extreme Oreo fan and the biggest "Pretty Little Liars" fan out there. I'm not going to tell you about how she is- was the only person who I was comfortable crying in front of or how she could make everything seem better when you think it’s the end of the world. Anyone who knew her is going to miss her." I stopped to let my words sink in. "My theory is that you never truly die. Everywhere you go you leave apart of yourself and Caitlin was everywhere. She had the gift of wriggling into your heart no matter how hard your exterior. I know many of us wanted her to stay here with us but unfortunately for her life was like, like a peaceful war. She was fighting the battle to stay alive but didn't show it at all. It was a war inside herself that only she could see and feel. As much as it hurts to see her leave, it would have been 50 times more painful for her to stay. Earth may have lost a soldier but Heaven just gained an angel." I ended off with that quote and stepped down from the podium.

I heard the faint sound of clapping. I couldn't make out from the loud beating drum sound going off in my ears.