Don't Forget to Write

Goodbye

The next morning, we came back to pick up the casket and put it into the Hearst, from there going to the Church. Me, my uncle, and a few cousins carried the casket to the front of the altar. I sat in silence while the priest spoke, and family shared a few prayers. The priest sprinkled holy water over the casket, then spread smoke around it. We carried the casket back to the Hearst. Once it was all the way in, I lightly knocked the wood with my fist. I don't know why. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

We went to the cemetery and set the casket down next to the hole he would lie in for the rest of Earth's time. The December gloom had disappeared for the day. The temperature had shot up, all of the snow and ice was melted away. The sky was blue, there were even birds chirping along, finding their friends who hadn't yet migrated. Beautiful day for a funeral.

We lowered the casket into the hole. I grabbed a rose from a vase and searched for a final sentiment, but nothing came. Sure, his death was a surprise, but wouldn't he have died soon enough, anyway? He was overweight and diabetic yet still ate like shit. He had heart problems yet did not exercise. He had the genetic predisposition for alcoholism like his father and his father's father and perhaps every man on up the paternal line yet he continued to abuse liquor. He was on the fast track to death long before he died. The brain aneurism was just an unexpected event that led faster to it. How could you pity a man who was practically killing himself every day for years? I felt bad about these thoughts. I wish I hadn't thought them. But they were bursting into the forefront of my mind and there was nothing I could do to stop them. Anger had consumed me in a way it never had, in a way that I couldn't control. It tore my brain and my heart apart, a war within my skull.

Finally, there was a moment of clarity. The voices in my head called a truce, and stopped making commotion. They stopped throwing negativity into my consciousness and talking about the bad things. For a moment there was no Chaos, only Order. A voice in my head, my voice, my one, true, undivided voice, finally said thank you for everything. You did the best that you could, I see that now. Tell grandma and Tio that I said hello, and I'll see you all when I see you. Rest easy. There was a soft knock as the rose hit the coffin.