“You left your tired family grieving
and you think they’re sad because you’re leaving,
but didn’t you see the jealousy in the eyes
of the ones who had to stay behind”
-The Smiths
“You’ll do it, won’t you?”
That was the last thing he heard her say, and it was a struggle. That was the last thing she had the strength to say to him or to anyone, and she had known it. He wondered how carefully she had chosen those words, and why she had said them to him.
Her hands gnarled and the lines in her face deepened. The pain is returning. The pain never really left and had been there for years and years to some degree. Now it racked the brittle body sunken into the dip of the worn mattress. She was covered with an afghan she had knitted herself thirty years prior. A relic of the past well on its way to becoming a memory.
The staticky light from the television gave the skin of her face a transluscence. Bones draped loosely in flesh. She looked like she could be dead already if not for the squirming mask of pain. It held on to her, prolonging the inevitable with torture.
That’s a hell of a way to go, he thought, loosening and tightening his grasp of the pillow.
His eyes suddenly swelled and tears streamed over his cheeks and off of his chin. Some dripped onto her face and the pain melted for a second. She almost smiled. He gasped automatically and choked out, I love you, grandma.
He held his breath and held the pillow. For a moment he shared the place where she was: a teetering place exactly halfway between clinging to life and letting go. It didn’t seem that there could be an in-between. It was one or the other. It came down to this most final decision. And he helped her, Just let go, grandma. And she did. He felt her let go- he hoped into a peaceful place that she had not known in a long time. It didn’t take long for her hand to relax, and he fell back into the chair that had been his home.
The world snapped back: the chair was hard, the room was cold, a moonbeam fell through the curtain, the television flicked at the darkness, and there was an awful sound.
He clamped his mouth closed in realization that the stuttering squeaky wail came from the back of his throat.
He cried into the pillow for a long time and woke up the next morning with a stiff neck.
Prior to today, Kyle was only vaguely aware that the Funeral home building had been there since he was a kid and probably long before. It sat inconspicuous in the background as an ominous reminder- largely ignored. That is, until you were forced to go. Then it crept under-skin, never to be forgotten.
In spite of its age, the interior was brand new, spotless with crisp lines and soft accents. The air was floral antiseptic, and although the spaces were wide and open, you knew it was a vault. Chairs seemed to keep appearing as the crowd grew. Twice, Kyle had to switch seats as new back rows materialized behind him. It seems grandma was loved. Or at least, heard of.
Where were all of these people during her last weeks? he wondered.
The service was unremarkable. People mulled about within small groups and without aim, sometimes reacting to one another. The mood might have been controlled by a man behind a curtain who piped in loose melodies in low octaves and low volumes. He had switches and dimmers for lighting and temperature. He was the wizard of death. In his house, anything above a forced smile and nod made you feel guilty.
So why was it that the woman in the hat with plastic flowers on it was allowed to continue. She bounced from group to individual, a little too loud, and a little too happy. She was too generous with hugs and blissfully unaware that the static cling was causing her skirt to stick to her substantial frame in awkward ways. The black suits at the entrance had her in their sites as she headed his direction.
“Kyle? Well, you have grown into a handsome young man, haven’t you?”
He turned to face lady-cling, who froze into a comedic statue actually waiting for an answer.
None came and so she continued, “How is college? You have just one more year, right?”
What?! Who is this woman? Maybe he’d might have met her once before. One of those ladies who was everyone’s aunt.
“S-school?” he stuttered, his eyes narrowing and lips flattening.
Who gives a crap?! I gave my grandma a pillow sandwich! he wanted to say, but instead he just pointed to the box in the front of the room and replied, “My grandma just died.”
She looked toward the casket in slow motion, “Of course she did, dear.” Before he could act, she had him in the clutches of one of her hugs.
Her breath was tepid, “Of course she did. Oh, but she’s in a better place.”
Kyle went limp into the invasive hug. Is she? He had heard that from at least a dozen people- she is in a better place. Like them, he had grown up believing that when people die, they go to heaven. But, as he sat across from grandma’s bed that final night, he had to be sure. He had to know she would be alright. However, some quick research on the web revealed__________________
