Red ~ TWD (Daryl Dixon)

The High Cost of Living

"We look not at what can be seen, but we look at what cannot be seen. For what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

Gabby's sermon barely registered over the sound of crying and Rick shoveling dirt. I kept my eyes locked on the grave, focusing on the sound of the metal tip of the shovel digging into the fresh soil.

"We look not at what can be seen, but we look at what cannot be seen."

Rick tossed the dirt into the shallow grave, the soil hitting a body hastily wrapped in an old, white sheet. It should be hitting a coffin, but luxuries like that were a thing of the past.

"For what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal."

Sasha stood paralyzed a few feet away from her brother's final resting place. She wasn't crying. She just looked shocked. Her brother's death hadn't sunk in. I couldn't decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Everything I knew about Sasha told me once the loss hit her she would unravel, quickly. It wouldn't be good for us, and it most certainly wouldn't be good for her.

"For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made from hands, eternal in the heavens."

There was a large part of me that wanted to slap a hand over Gabby's mouth to shut him up. God, heaven, things we couldn't see, it all rang hallow. The words seemed to mock us. It was almost impossible to believe in heaven, in God, in a better place after what we'd lived through. The dead ate the living. The living slaughter each other. That was the world now. God may not have killed Tyreese, but he hadn't saved him either. We were on our own.

My eyes slid to Sasha again, and I swallowed hard. She didn't look like a woman comforted by the fact her brother was in heaven. She looked destroyed. First Bob and now Tyreese.

"In the heavens," Gabby finished, closing the tattered Bible.

Rick took a step back, offering the shovel to Glenn who stepped forward with his shoulders hunched, gathering a small amount of soil on the tip of the shovel before tossing it on the body. He handed the shovel to Maggie without a word who repeated the process. One-by-one we all stepped forward, saying our final goodbye.

Merle offered the shovel to Sasha, but she looked at him in confusion. Daryl took the shovel in Sasha's stead, shoveling a pile of dirt onto the body then walking away. My throat constricted when he passed me, the urge to touch him making my fingers tingle, but I let him go without a word or touch. Things between us were uncomfortable at best and awkward at worst. A funeral was no place to rectify that situation, so like every other time in the last few days, I said nothing. I did nothing.

I moved to Sasha side, watching Rick continue to bury Tyreese. Our leader was deeply shaken by the loss. The man had saved his little girl, a debt he would never be able to repay. The only other person still in attendance was Gabby who stood a few feet away, head bowed in prayer. I didn't know why I stayed. Sasha and I weren't close. I wasn't even sure I'd call us friends, but she was suffering, and I didn't want her to do it alone. No one should suffer alone.

"Do you think it's true?" I looked at her, caught off-guard by her question. "That he's in a better place?"

Truthfully, I had no idea. Before the world ended I'd never given much thought to life and death. Dead was dead, living was living, but the world was different now. I was different. I wanted to believe in a better place, a place where we all found happiness, peace, even if it was only in death.