Crush-ed

Part 2

Suburban, CT
SOMETIME BEFORE

My mother deserved to be 100." Allie stood at the podium. A valedictorian and student advocate on campus the podium should have been home to her. She still looked comfortable and confident somehow, but the church podium overlooking a crowd of mourning individuals was not her home. "She wanted to be a grandma so bad. We would talk about it after the diagnosis, what I was going to name them and even after we knew that she only had a few months she still loved to talk about Kate and Pam and Andrew." The church was one of those tiny New England chapels. It was one floor, simple in design. It had white walls and a red carpet, no intricate stained glass. The windows were clear and you could see the snow piling up outside which could make our trip back home difficult. It was filled with our friends, and Allie's sisters' friends, and of course packed to the walls with the people that loved Allie's mother. I'd only ever been to one funeral before -- my Dad's best friend. It's the only time I've ever seen him cry. All of our friends were crying, Ella, Christian, Austin, Hannah, Megan, Emma. I wasn't crying then. I don't know why because it was the saddest thing I'd ever experienced. I pictured Allie's mother talking about spoiling her grandkids, about things she knew she'd never see. People that would exist that she'd never know or have a chance to love but deserved to. I pictured Allie at thirty something holding a newly born Kate or Pam or Andrew. I don't know if a moment can hold that much pain and happiness. I don't know if a person could. There has to be a word for that feeling in German or something. Sitting in that church I felt like a puzzle piece being jammed into a cutout that it didn't belong in, like I didn't fit in my skin but had to force it. I put my hand on Austin's shoulder as Allie told stories about her mother. How her mom road the bus with her to school every day when she was five because she was too scared to go alone. How her mom turned their basement into a mini-salamander sanctuary because she was an active environmentalist. Austin looked at me, tears streaming down his face. Everyone in this tiny church was crying. Allie wasn't, though. She smiled through her stories like she didn't want tears to ruin these wonderfully preserved moments of life and happiness. Memories aren't waterproof and it takes more than baking soda to get sadness out. I only started crying after we walked out of the church. Like that was it. At baptisms they dunk you in water and you leave the church and you're "revitalized" with life. At weddings a priest marries you and you leave the church and your married, ready to start a new life of excitement and love. But those are the start of something. Funerals are a finale I didn't really care for. It has the same people as the other two and the same place and you even tell stories and celebrate life, but when you leave the church this time it's the end, that's it. I didn't need alcohol to make this emotional, but I wanted it. We were told not to wear black to the funeral because Allie's mom didn't want the event to be depressing. As we walked out into the snow vibrant green, red, and orange dresses stumbled through the six inches that had already accumulated. "I think we may have to stay here, we can't drive home in this guys." Emma was my ride and had picked me up in New Jersey on our way to Connecticut. "My Dad booked us a hotel room. We can go after the reception."