Death

I am flesh and blood, and my fate has never been something I could control.

When someone is born, it is a celebration of life. There’s a party, food, balloons, presents, flowers. And every birthday thereafter, it’s the nearly the same thing; a party, food, balloons, presents.

 

No matter how many times I do this in my life, I will never understand why people celebrate the end of a person’s life.

 

In some sick, twisted circle, there is a party, food, and flowers after a person’s death.

 

It’s almost like having a birthday.

 

I never fear death, but once I walked up to his casket, I was insanely afraid. It has been proven to me time and again that at any time, at any age, under any circumstance, I could die. I am not God, and I am not immortal. I am flesh and blood, and my fate has never been in my hands, never been something I could control.

 

He has proven this much to me.

 

I reach over his still form, my grief-stricken mind playing tricks on me; I thought I saw his chest rise and fall with a breath. I place the trinket in my hand on the edge of the casket’s silk-lined hinge, bringing my hand back to its place on the altar I was kneeling on.

 

My hand brushed one of his.

 

I retracted it to my body quickly, as if it had been burned.

 

His hand was stiff, rough against my soft flesh.

 

I was scared of how he felt, how stiff he was, how dead he was, so scared that I quickly got up and took to my seat.

 

And I was so ashamed of how easily I turned my back on him, now that he was dead.