Dear Gen: A love letter

Prologue

Dear Genevieve,

I had to know what death felt like.  

I sat in a dark room, a light shining over your open casket. I hadn't known you very well, and you barely knew me. To my little six-year-old self at the time, you were nothing more than a silent old woman I visited in the resting home once. I was not sad when you died. I didn't understand death yet.

As the gray-haired priest gave a eulogy to our grieving family, a strange feeling gripped me. Listening to the words spoken about your life, a life I hadn't known, unfamiliar thoughts began to churn in my head. Taking in the somber mood of the room, it suddenly dawned on me that you had been loved. That your death caused sadness in others. My gaze slowly shifted back to your coffin, where I knew you were. Once you were alive, and then you were dead.

My chest constricted.

When it came time for people to say their good-byes to your open casket, I got in line. I didn't need to, but shaken down to my core, I had to get a closer look.

I climbed up the stairs to the platform to your coffin, stood on tiptoe, and peered over the opening. You lay there, pale eyelids closed over dead eyes, thin lips stretched into a permanent flat line, and your frail, gnarled fingers clutched a rosary in a death grip.

Morbidly curious, I reached out and touched your hand.

It was a cold that never chilled my fingers before. An icy, clammy, sinks-into-your-bones cold. Yet I yanked my hand back as if it had been burned. I shivered and ran away from you, my realization following me, haunting me for days to come.

Someday, I'm going to die, too.

Did you see me that day, my young brown eyes widened in fright, trying to calm my panicking heart? Did you shake your head and turn to Andy to whisper under your breath?

Someday, she'll read the letters. And then she'll understand.