On the edge of everything

Part 13

On Sunday morning, I wake up early. I awake with the same early morning restlessness I have when I am going on vacation later that day or it's the last day of school, but this time there isn't a pleasant destination, it's just that feeling of anticipation. James's memorial starts at 10, but I am up only a little after 6. My dress is laid out on my dresser; it's a deep blue that reminds me of the ocean. I didn't want to wear black. Black is just like my grandpa's funeral, just like the day my mom changed and my wrist never healed. I look down at the temporary cast and remember my surgery after the memorial. I wish that I wasn't awake, that I had a few more minutes happily asleep rather than acutely aware of the day that lies ahead of me.

It's quite early-- I don't want to wake my parents or call a friend. Then, I remember something that makes the day seem a little brighter. I text Rose. All I say is 'hey', hoping that she might miraculously be awake at this hour on a sunday.

I lie in bed, watching the sun slowly rise based on the shadows on the walls and all of the movement of the world speed up again. At night, not only does the world go silent, it goes still. It doesn't seem to exist in the same universe as the day, but it's on the same soil, on the same earth. And the movement begins again each morning. I watch the birds start to twitter in the branches which have begun to sway in the early spring breeze.

Rose texts me an hour later. 'How are you?' it says. No abbreviations, proper punctuation. I like the formality, the effort that was made rather than slang or emojis.

I respond immediately with complete honesty: 'I don't know.'

I expect a slow response-- how is she supposed to respond to that? I don't know what I want or what I expect but she quickly responds with the exact words I need: 'That is okay.'

My parents drop me off at the front of my elementary and middle school church before going to find parking. As I enter, I hug a few scattered classmates and teachers from the nine years that I spent at this school. I haven't set foot in this entryway since eighth grade graduation when I walked out of these doors sure that I would never look back and that everything was going to be better at SC and beyond. I was right in that it's been better, but it's also been a whole lot more difficult, complicated and sad.

I don't see Jessie and Sara in the back so I turn towards the entrance into the church and I see a large, shiny black coffin.

This is only the second funeral that I have been to. At the first, my grandpa's, he was cremated before the memorial. My parents didn't care to explain this to me at the time, so I thought for years that when someone dies, their body just disappears with them.

That casket, sitting to the left of the door that I walked in and out of every Wednesday for nine years during weekly mass, is a harsh reminder that even when the soul and life have left, the body remains. Seeing it is like getting punched in the stomach and it knocks the breath out of me. All that I can see is his lifeless body lying in there, the sweet face of a happy child that grew up to such a devastating end. I wonder if anything is buried with him, like the fifth grade yearbook where he misspelled basketball yet still turned it in and was printed into longevity or the relay t-shirt that he designed in third grade. Or is it just him, alone in the hollow box.

I turn away just as a few tears start to come down, and I walk outside. A line has formed to write notes to his family, my old science teacher and her husband. I move to the back of it and run into so many people from my childhood who I rarely think about beyond old photos and class projects. I hug Carolina, someone I once considered my best friend. I say a sad hello to Lucas and Matthew, two other crushes that I had later in middle school. I see Ms. Melissa, a student teacher from seventh grade. In her arms is a small baby named Emma. I make silly faces at her and my old teacher smiles as she gives me a hug. Death and new life are never very far apart.