From Hereafter: A Collection of Memoirs

The Return of Color

My shaky hands held up a page from my notebook, which was covered top to bottom on both sides in my drunk cursive handwriting, masking the faint yellow flower pattern that repeated in the background. "It is apparent that all the color has faded from our lives, and now everything is gray," I continued, now at the end of the speech, "but the color can seep back into our lives, even if the color scheme will be a bit different moving forward. I saw a flash of these colors on Wednesday when so many people came and demonstrated how truly loved and cherished she is, and how important she is to everyone here, and to others who could not be here today. It is clear how special she is, and how lucky we have all been to have known her. There is no doubt in my mind that her memory will be carried on forever, as she left a permanent impact on me and everyone else here today. And I will always love her and miss her."

We all stood in a circle in my grandma's little backyard. Everyone was crying. I can't cry in front of others. Instead, my body transforms that energy into violent shakes. These aren't just tremors or shivers. The shakes are so obnoxious and exaggerated that it looks as if I am trying to wave someone over. Maybe that's why my dad and uncle quickly came over to me and told me everything will be okay and to relax.

My grandma's husband Norman offered everyone some of her ashes to spread in their garden. I watched as he would upturn the urn, dumping a pile into someone's cupped hands. The frigid November wind snatched a portion of each pile. I backed away, watching the wind distribute the ashes all over the yard and eventually onto everyone's clothes. Norman's once black pants now were light gray. I declined the handful of my grandma's ashes, opting instead for the small take-home Ziploc bag of her. After tucking the bag into my purse I hurried inside because I couldn't watch her blow around anymore. I ducked into an empty hallway and examined myself in a panic, making sure there was nothing on me.

Back at my apartment I did the same thing I'd been doing every night for the last four weeks, ever since I broke my record of ten months of no contact with my parents so that I could schedule a visit with my grandma in the hospital. My routine was laying in my black satin sheets with a cocktail in my skull glass on my bedside table (which was actually just a chair). Drinking until I was able to stop shaking enough to fall asleep. Until the horrible thoughts and existential terror were replaced with dizziness– a temporary distraction to trick myself into closing my eyes.

There was nobody to talk to anymore. The person I was dating, if you can call two casual dates and one kiss "dating," did not understand, and got angry at me when I said I needed space and could not plan any future dates for the time being. That night they texted me, "Now that the funeral is over, when can we see each other again?" When I blocked them they started harassing me on social media.

One of my friends texted me, "You know those aren't her ashes, right? The ashes belong to all the people that were cremated that day, there might not be any part of her at all in there."

Thinking about how my ex knew my grandma, and how the last thing he had said to me was that he was open to texting if I ever needed to, I took him up on his offer, texting him, asking if he was awake. He responded "No."

Everyone always said, "I'm sorry, I'm here if you ever need anything." It felt like three hundred people told me that. To me it was the worst thing to say. It sounded like they heard that someone I loved died, they searched the file cabinet of scripts in their brain, found a folder entitled "When Someone Dies" and pulled out a piece of paper where the only words upon it are "I'm sorry, I'm here if you ever need anything," so they speak it like a reflex. It is not true. It is not genuine. I wanted so badly to just have a normal conversation with someone, like old times, like nothing bad happened, but nobody was willing to. They just wanted to say how sorry they were.