Funerals

One of a series of 'Blinks.' Glimpses into the wild emotional roller coaster that is life.

Why is it that at funerals, people always say the worse possible things? The thought goes through my head for the umteenth time as the chubby woman babbles on in front of me. Her fingers digging nervously at her folds. Black is not as slimming as they say.
         "I'm just saying you did everything you could." There she goes again. Like an rail road spike in my gut. It's good to know that everything I have to offer isnt even enough to save a single life. I deserve to be in that casket, not her.
          "And its a shame you had to find her like that." Yes, its such a shame that my best friend called me after chasing a handful of sleeping pills with a bottle of cough syrup. Such a f*****g shame I had to kick in her bathroom door to find her passed out on the shag rug.
           "Is it true she called you right before she..." The fat woman in the black dress shifts nervously as I stare wordlessly at her. She want to say more. I don't. "I'm sorry for your loss." She waddles off quickly to cling to the arm of some lanky penguin talking to another couple over a glass of wine. If I didn't know better I would say I was at some snobby party. All we have to do is throw a table clothe over the casket and there you go. So easy to forget someone died a couple days ago.
           All these people here to show their respects. Not that they care. They're here because its expected. I'd like to find a single one that knows her favorite color. Turquoise. 'Cause it sounds like tortoise, her favorite animal. I laugh a little despite myself and it draws a few angry glances. But she was like that. So silly that everyone around her had to laugh. Even though under that contagious smile, she was bleeding to death. From gaping wounds deep inside that no bandage could patch.
           I wonder if any new of her hopes. Her dreams. Such a sweet girl. She wanted to be a pediatricion ever since she was so so small. When her sister got sick. And sicker. And when her sister died of that illness, those dreams became something more. A quest. To make sure no family had to go through what hers did. But here her family was again. Burrying the other daughter. I'm not really angry at any of the people here. Well yes I am. But its magnified by the hatred that has no target. My hatred for her. How could she have left me like this. I was her best friend. And her parents, a second family to me, now crippled in the corner. Her mother a huddled mass of undrying tears. Her father a husk of a man staring ahead with empty eyes as he tries to put on a show of strength for his distraut wife.
           What right did she have? To take something so precious from us all. To leave us all behind. To slip through my clumsy fingers. The only one I could tell anything to. And now she is gone. Who the hell am I supposed to turn to now? How am I going to deal with this with out her?
            I spin around at a tap on my shoulder.
            "What!?" The little old man with glasses so thick, they look bullet proof. He jumps back as I shout in his face. The silent room suddenly gets even more silent. I storm out, disgusted by the whole scene. The fake people. The empty words. But mostly, with her.