From Ant to Eagle(59)

Reverend Ramos started talking—something about God and heaven and Sammy. He said that Sammy was up above with people that loved him and that God would make a special place for him there. It made me sad to think of Sammy so far away. I liked Oliver’s version of heaven better. Sammy wasn’t going to God’s heaven, Sammy was going to be buried in the ground and stay with me. He would be in the clouds and rain and grass—just like Oliver said. Sammy wasn’t going anywhere.

When the reverend started reading something from the Bible my mind completely left the church. I don’t remember what I was thinking, only that I snapped back out of it when he said something with an ‘R’ in it. I leaned over, ready to repeat it to Sammy in my funny pirate voice, only to find Dad sitting where Sammy should have been. It wasn’t the last time I’d forget my brother was gone.

I looked up at Dad. His face was bright red like he’d just run to the Secret Spot and two steady streams of tears were running down his cheeks. In his lap was a pile of tissues as high as his stomach and every so often he’d make a horrible noise as if he were coming up for air.

I leaned over and whispered, “It’s okay, Dad, Sammy’s not in heaven.”

Dad looked down at me but he didn’t seem to understand. He looked confused. I wanted to explain but couldn’t—churches aren’t for talking; they’re for being quiet.

I looked over at Mom. She was sitting on the other side of me and was crying too. Only she wasn’t so obvious about it. Instead she was sitting rigidly watching the reverend and moved quickly to dab her eyes with the balled up Kleenex every few seconds. She must have felt me watching her because she looked down at me with a sad look, then reached over and grabbed my hand. She squeezed it tightly. It hurt but I didn’t mind. It felt nice to be held that tightly.

I was glad when Reverend Ramos stopped talking and closed the Bible. I thought we would be able to leave. I thought I could finally stop looking at that horrible coffin. Instead he looked to the back of the church.

“We have one more person who has asked to say something,” he said. “Oliver, if you want to come up.”

Oliver? I thought for sure it was a different Oliver than I knew but when I turned around, sure enough, there was Oliver from the hospital making his way through the crowd. He must have been near the back because I hadn’t seen him.

He looked different—very different. He wasn’t wearing a hospital gown but real clothes. He had on black dress pants with suspenders over a white button shirt and in his hands he carried a black, wide-brimmed hat held tightly to his chest. He was moving slowly, having to push through all the people in the aisle to get to the front.

When he got to the altar he pulled out a piece of crinkled, yellow paper from his shirt pocket and took his time flattening it out on the podium. When he was satisfied he looked up—except he didn’t look up at everyone, he looked up at me.

“This is a poem,” he said, “by Mary Elizabeth Frye:

Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there; I do not sleep.

I am the thousand winds that blow,

I am the diamond glints on snow,

I am the sunlight on ripened grain,

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the mornings hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there; I did not die.”





CHAPTER 37

ON THE TOP OF A HILL, IN A CEMETERY IN LONDON, WE BURIED Sammy beneath a leafless poplar tree. A small patch of ground was cleared of snow and in the centre a hole the size of a child’s coffin was dug. To this day I’m not sure how they dug a hole in the frozen earth, but there it was, as if the ground had just opened up to swallow my brother.

Afterwards people came up to me and Mom and Dad to say how sorry they were. They kept talking about how bravely Sammy had fought. They kept referring to “Sammy’s fight with cancer.” To me it didn’t seem like much of a fight—more like a bully beating up a little kid who sat with his arms tied behind his back. I thought about telling them this but decided not to—the less I said, the sooner people would leave.

I found Aleta standing off to the side after the service was over. We stood for a moment looking at each other, she in her pea coat, hair tied back in a black bow; me in a black suit Mom had bought me the day before. I didn’t know what to say to her. I didn’t know what to say to anyone. Which is why I was happy when she took two steps toward me and wrapped her arms around my neck.

I broke down. All the tears I’d held back in that stuffy church came rolling out like waterfalls. My body began to convulse like a car sputtering fumes.

We must have stood like that for a long time because when we finally stopped and looked around most of the crowd had disappeared. A few people in huddled groups stood around talking—Mr. Alvarado with my dad, Mom with a group of ladies from her fundraising group, Reverend Ramos and Dr. Parker—but for the most part, everyone was gone.

I hadn’t noticed anyone behind me and was startled by a tap on my shoulder. When I turned around I found Oliver. He was wearing the wide-brimmed hat he was carrying in church and I’m not sure I would have recognized him out of context. He must have been waiting for us to stop crying.