Hazel Grace was no longer suffering from personhood. Her skin had grown cold, her lips perpetually blue, and her lungs that sucked at being lungs were no longer struggling. The funeral was filled with family and friends, Hazel's parents leading the processions with sad words of their own. Isaac read a eulogy, tears flowing out of his eyes as he stared forward, unseeing, and then read the letter from Augustus to Peter Van Houten, who had decided to show up as well.
"Here's your ending, Hazel," Van Houten whispered as he slipped a paper containing the answers to Hazel's questions about 'An Imperial Affliction' into the casket, "I''m terribly sorry you did not get to hear it from this screw up you call a man." He took a swig of water and headed back to his seat, face as pale and sunken as ever.
Hazel's funeral was hard, but the burial was harder. Mrs. and Mr. Lancaster both sobbed as their daughter's body was set into the ground, but threw a pile of dirt on the rising mound anyways, because you really can't opt out of that when you're at a burial. The Waters family helped the newly grieving couple back to their car, allowing them to take one last look at the mound of dirt that hid their daughter from view.
"She's in a better place now, darling. She's going home to Gus," Mr. Lancaster told his wife through his own choked sobs. She nodded, knowing that Hazel was buried next to the great love of her life.
Death is rather terrifying, Hazel decided. You live all of these years doing the same pointless things over and over again, and then you die. See all of the memories flash before your eyes, take a final breath, and fall into oblivion. Oblivion is inevitable. People may be afraid of the realization that one day, they literally will not matter at all, but it's still going to call out their name. We don't get to choose who remembers us and who doesn't. Hazel, however, was not afraid of oblivion like the great love of her life was. Why be afraid of something that's going to occur anyways? Pointless. Hazel thought about death the same way, up until she was seated on the edge of her life. A part of her wanted to let go and join Augustus in Captial-S Somewhere, but the other part of her wanted to cling on to her short little life and keep her parents happy. Another part of her, buried quite deep inside, didn't want to let go because it didn't want to see the unknown. Turns out that's another choice we don't really have; whether we live or die when we're merely clinging on to life. So, in the end, Hazel slipped into death. It welcomed her with open arms, had been expecting her for years. Here she was, finally, the pawn he'd been longing to collect for four flimsy years. And he threw her into Heaven just like he had Augustus. She might be special, but she is not worth death's time.
"You're glowing, Hazel Grace," Augustus said upon her arrival. A smile spread across her face. Heaven may be different from earth, but it had something earth didn't: Augustus Waters.
"Am I? I can literally see the halo on top of your head," Hazel shot back. Gus laughed and pulled her into his arms, breathing in the scent of Hazel that he had missed for an entire year.
"I see you waited," she whispered, pushing her head into Gus' chest.
"I'll always wait for you, Hazel Grace. Okay?"
.
"Okay."
