What You Don't Really See About Me

Makiah Fifteen

     A couple days have gone by since that conversation I had with Nate. I feel like it did help me and Nate become better friends again and to help build our friend up a bit stronger. It's 3am, Levi's funeral is later today...I don't know how I will handle it. I'm scared. I decide to sleep, hoping that when I wake up, it'll all just be a bad dream and things go back go normal.

     ***************

     Espea and I arrive at the funeral home. I desperately need her support for this. We sit in the car for a couple minute before finally getting out to head inside. There are many people from school here, including Bryan, Levi's best friend and the guy who bullied me for the longest time.....

     "Hey Makiah" Bryan says softly. "You look nice. It's been a while since I've seen you at school. I hope you're doing okay."

     "Thank you, Bryan." I respond. Not making eye contact with him. Just trying to hold myself together.

     Espea and I take our seats. It's closed casket. Levi didn't ever want people to see him like that and I fully understand why he would feel like that. Sometimes it's best to just let people remember you in the way they last saw you alive. Your smile. Your lively energy. All that you were before what made you who you are left. Rather than the vessel that lay there. That's not you. That's not Levi anymore. That box there may not be empty, but that body is. The most important part of him, is gone now.

     One day I'll be at peace with that.......but today is not that day.

     I sit there, emotionless during the whole funeral. I can't lose it in front of everyone. I want to be strong for Levi. But I am emotionless also because I've lost one of the most important people in my life and I feel so numb. I can't feel right this moment. All of my emotions are just everywhere but also nowhere, at the same time. I can't feel anything.

     This doesn't feel real. It feels like a bad dream. I can't understand how someone can be here and then just one day, they're not. I don't know how that's possible.

     I've never been religious. I don't know what to believe. Maybe there's something that comes after, maybe there's not. All I know is that he is the reason I hope, so deeply, that there is something beyond this life. If there is, maybe I'll see him again. I have a hard time coping with the fact that I may never get the chance to be in his presence again.

     This is not okay. I'm not okay.