The rain of a cold Chicago spring day was lashing down towards the ground. The thunder roared and the clouds seemed to sob just as the people were doing just underneath them. There withered hearts lined up in rows under tarps to see the end of their good friend Thomas Jenkins, Tom to most. Lying in his coffin he looks so peaceful and at rest despite the adventurous life he lead and the kind of free spirit he was. There along the dying grass of the cemetery sitting in chairs obviously rented hopefully explaining the odor resonating from the cushions. His mother sits in the front in tears, wearing her favorite formal black dress. The stains of her tears were not visible in its dark shade. Short in stature but not in heart the poor woman losing her son at the age of 15. His father struggling to stay strong for the family tragically separated from their Thomas. The tears welling in his eyes as he fights to hold back a violent sob. The poor man dressed in his favorite designer suit once only wore on important business occasions now his outfit of mourning, there to see his son off from the mortal world. Holding his wife close they sit in their chairs as the gravity acted tenfold on their bodies unable to see their son the fear strangling them for they cannot speak, only cry. Behind them sat there daughter, faithful sister of the deceased. They used to compete for dominance when she now realizes she barely spoke to him without argument, smart remarks, or insults. Dressed in a less expensive variation of her mother’s dress, she sobbed into her tissue that her loving brother had given her some time ago. With great surprise her parents noticed her sobs and the tissue. “Samantha where did you get that tissue” spoke her mother voice broken by random sobs. “Tom had given it to me a few nights ago when he saw me crying the other night, I never used it and left it on my nightstand thinking it was simply mockery “she replied. Her mother turned and whispered to her husband “I can’t believe she kept it with all the bickering they used to do” “death changes people Mabel the weak become strong the strong have to be strong and the worst enemies become loving friends when one is struck down but the world keeps going so we have to as well and you have to cope with it anyway you can ‘cause the world won’t stop for any one man” Mabel sat back in thought contemplating what she had just been told “Thomas…….” Just as she spoke the funeral began and the speakers gathered on the stage.
Friends, family, and people who wished to speak were lining up readying their speeches clearing their throats and wiping there tears away so they can honor him more appropriately. Mabel looked back and saw Jezebel, Thomas’ girlfriends; she was in ruins her makeup was running her tears were streaming and her vision was so blurred she couldn’t even walk straight. Her black top and pants were wrinkled and torn as if she had given up on her appearance, maybe even given up on life without her Thomas. To her surprise Mabel surprise she witnessed Jezebel stumble up to the stage in line with the other speakers. “Oh no this is going to be a disaster” she said to her husband “she’s too emotional for this sort of event she’s going to have a breakdown” interjected Samantha. Now Thomas spoke “let’s pray god gives her strength today” the director of the cemetery walked to the podium he looked like too much of a cheerful man to be directing funerals or cemeteries. He spoke with authority and pride as he announced the speakers first was a friend of toms named Jeffery. Short and muscular him and tom had him had run amuck the streets of their neighborhood everyday of their lives and startled everyone they ran by but the section of town fell silent the day tom did and Jeffery could not continue without him. He approached the podium and unfolded a paper from his pocket cleared his throat and closed his eyes. He muttered something to himself and began to speak
“Hello my friends and family of the deceased, I stand before you not as a speaker but more towards a mere story teller. The days I spent with tom were the best. He was like the brother I always wanted but was forbidden by god. It’s true when you say we were trouble makers and we did fool around on the streets but we were no vandals or hooligans we were just enjoying our childhood before we had to toil in our jobs and be enslaved by our families. The stories I could tell you my friends” he broke into a small chuckle as he remembered. “We had fun is what I’m trying to say. I still remember the day we had snuck into Mr. Greens backyard because we knew his apple tree was baring fruit and those were the sweetest apples we had ever eaten, but it took so much work because I don’t think many here are aware of this but mister green enjoys his apples and he built a 7 foot wooden picket fence to prevent thieves like us from getting in. needless to say it was a challenge, I remember climbing on toms shoulders and hoisting him up over the fence just to climb the apple tree again…..” He rambled on about this story for several minutes then struggled to realize no one was really paying him much attention he cleared his throat and spoke again “well the point is he was the brother I never had and every day I walk the streets alone I know he’s there next to me in spirit and if that driver knew what he had done to us he would feel so much more guilty then I hope he feels now” he turned to the casket “rest in peace my brother, my partner in crime, and truly my hero” he looked down closed his eyes and walked off before his tears started again. He walked promptly to his seat and the next speaker walked up to the podium.
It was his cousin Bryan. Bryan was a fully grown man tall muscular similar to Jeffery but with a less troublesome and more noble and honorable. He walked up to the microphone and spoke with distinction “my cousin was a man of honor; never did he steal money or cheat or hurt another man just out of spite. He never insulted women or treated them as if they were just pieces of meat. I’ve seen personally the acts of devotions he’s dedicated to his girlfriend jezebel” he motioned over to her sobbing and whimpering in the corner on the stage, but when everyone looked towards her she did her best to straighten up for the crowd. She waved at them hoping they would look away. Instead they gave her looks of sympathy and it tore her up inside. After a long awkward moment of the crowds stares she went back to her destroyed self, waiting to say farewell to the man that was so madly in love with her. Bryan continued to speak “and he never abandoned anyone or left anyone to die, he always kept an eye and ear open in case a friend of his became suicidal, now he thought the day that he would save a suicidal person would never come till…” he could not speak paralyzed with shame and sadness. He sucked it up and said what he had planned to say “…till the day he saved me from myself. I was going nowhere I was left by my girlfriend who I was with for two years I was fired from my job. to top everything off I was alone my parents had died and I was an orphan since I was 8. Safe to say my life was a mess, I was ready to jump off the big clock tower downtown. When I was on the edge closing my eyes ready to jump he showed up behind me grabbed my hand and said to me ‘this isn’t the end please don’t do this for me?’ and at that point I realized that my life was still worth living if I had friends like him” Bryan turned to the casket that held his savior he got on his knees and whispers in his ear softly “why did you have to leave me here alone I needed you” he got back up and tapped his body in four places to form a cross and whispered “farewell”. As he walked down from the stage the next speaker approached the podium. To the surprise of the crowd jezebel had been the one that was next. With her make up running and unable to be fully understood through continuous sobbing and crying she managed to pull herself together and speak
“Tom was…” she stopped to sob then continued. “A man like no other, he cared about his friends his family and….” She paused, testing to see if she had the strength to speak the worlds her heart commands her to speak “me, he cared about me. I never felt so much love resonate from one man like I saw felt and receive from tom. There were so many times when he risked his health for me and I know that I never deserved him, I made a point to tell him one day ‘why do you love me so much there a million girls out there that deserve you more than I do’ and he had kissed me grabbed me in his arms stared into my eyes and told me ‘I could never love someone else as much as I love you, you’re a dream that comes true every day. You are a vision that mesmerizes me and if you don’t deserve me I don’t care because I think you deserve the world and all the stars in the night sky that try to outshine your radiance’. I had never been told something so magical and at that moment I knew at that moment that he truly loved me not because I was beautiful or anything like that but for my heart” she broke into a burst of tears and sobs. Speaking again into the mic she was barely understandable through the endless tears and sobs “and now he’s gone and I can’t even imagine being happy or with someone else” she turned to him and spoke “tom you will be in my heart mind and you will be the last thing I cry about” she got on her knees and pulled a unknown tablet out of her purse and put it in her mouth in full view of the audience in front of her but no one was able to guess what it was. As she bit down on it she spoke “why did you have to push me out of that cars way” she kissed him and fell to the floor foaming from the mouth. The poison had taken effect and it was her end. In the crowd men and women were shouting “oh my lord poison” “she’s dead” “she’s died next to her lover” “how did she get cyanide” when the people reached her it was too late. She had joined her love in an inescapable land of eternal love
