Sad Post Final Part

 I went to his funeral. It was at 9 am. The church was filled here and there with people. There were people crying during the service. There were readings. There was the eucharist. His body was in a closed casket under a white sheet.

the burial took place right after. the day was hot. i was wearing a black shirt and black pants. we stood directly in the sun as people  shared last thoughts about him. there was a mariachi band playing.

i didn't cry.

his father stood in front of the casket and began to sing. the mariachi band played with him. his face contorted at every note. he lost his voice at times when he couldn't stop the tears from coming. he sang out his broken heart. i thought about the love of my father, and i cried.

overhead, i hear an airplane. i look up and spot a tiny gray shape fly over us. what a racket it makes! i think that maybe that's our life: a passing blip, and a loud splash of noise. the plane passes and is gone.

his mother cries violently. outbursts of grief hit her and i worry she'll never have control of herself ever again. i try placing my own mother in this woman's place, were it my funeral, but i just cannot. the image is too remote for me to imagine. so i just watch her cry.

we watch as they bury him. lots of people are gone now. before they leave, we form a line and threw handfuls of dirt into the grave. it doesn't mean much to me; i do it because everyone else is. i try attaching the feeling of the dirt on my hand with a feeling of mortality. I try making his death tangible by rubbing the leftover dirt between my fingers. But no deeper meanings come to me. I feel nothing.

they bury him. everyone leaves the family to themselves because it feels too personal to stay.

I would have regretted not going.

Rest In Peace.

Sad Post Part 2

My reaction to everything that's happened? Shock. Disbelief. Assertion of denial. This can't be happening. But that's it.

In truth, I'm not heart-broken. Yes, someone has passed away, but not someone I loved. Not someone I cared about. If there is a fault in this, don't tell me.

I'm shocked by this death, but I'm not upset. I feel guilty for not being more moved, but this is the unerring truth: I'm not sad over this person's death. He was a stranger to me, and the only connection I held with him was one of accident, convenience, and impersonal politeness. The event itself is tragic; he was only twenty-one years old and almost out of college. He was a nice person, as far as I knew him, and his death is a horrible loss. There was no reason for this to happen.

This time isn't about me, though. It's about the person who passed, the family left behind, the friends who are grieving. I can wonder and I can formulate any thoughts I want about how the situation affects me, but that doesn't help anyone. And it's not healthy to focus too much on yourself.

In a few days, I'll be going to his funeral. If you don't want to think I am a horrible person, don't read on. I'm attending his funeral to save face. My friends will be there, and if I don't show up, they will never forgive me. They are under the impression that the deceased and I were friends, when in actuality, we were only friendly. Now that he has passed, this relationship has cemented into a reality which I do not think I will be able to escape for many years. To keep the respect of my friends, I will go to the funeral. Only out of politeness.


And if I'm wrong about all this, I hope I am able to someday understand why.

Sad Post

Okay.

So yesterday, thursday, someone I knew was hit by a car while riding his bike and later died at the hospital. He wasn't someone I was close with. He was an acquaintance of mine. I don't know if we were really friends, although we were always friendly to each other. We hung around the same friends. He was friends with my friends, so we were at the same gatherings sometimes. A few years ago he was my secret santa for chistmas and got me a hawaiin shirt.

The weird thing is, right, that i saw him wednesday night. I was one of the last people who saw him alive. so strange. i shook his hand, smiled at him, saw him talking and moving and living. now he's gone? i even joked with him. he was wearing a berkeley shirt but he didn't go there. i said to him as he was leaving, 'hey, bro. i didn't know you went to berkeley.' he smiled and said as he was turning to leave, 'nah, it's a souvenir.' then he left and the next afternoon he was dead.

yesterday, thursday, after it happened, we gathered at my friends house and sat around a bonfire. no one spoke for about an hour and a half. like i said, i wasn't close to him, but some of my friends were, and they were crying when i got there. i had no idea what to do, what to say, so i sat quietly and stared into the fire.


Possibly more on this later.