Only Child(36)

I didn’t like sitting all the way in the front. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me from behind. Mommy had her arm around me and she was holding me very tight, her fingers were grabbing my arm and the grabbing made her fingers look white. The sadness I could feel coming off her made my chest feel tight. And it was like the other people coming in the church room brought more sadness with them, and the room was too full with people and their sadness, and it squeezed my chest tighter and tighter until I could only take small, fast breaths.

Andy’s casket was right in front of where we were sitting. I wondered if Andy up in heaven or wherever his soul went knew that right now was his funeral and people were saying their final good-byes to him, and then his body in the casket was going in a grave in the graveyard. Could he see us sitting on the bench in this freezing cold room, and could he feel the people’s sadness?

First the man from the church who was wearing like a black dress or something and had a cross necklace on said a speech on a microphone, and it was long, and I didn’t understand everything he said, but some of it was about God. And he said things about Andy, and I didn’t know how he knew all those things about him, because we never saw him before. He also sang songs in between his speech that I didn’t know, and the people in the room sang the songs with him, except for Mommy and Daddy, they were very still and quiet. All three of us were sitting very close together, legs and arms touching.

After the man from the church was done with his speech and songs, Daddy got up. He walked to the microphone very slow, and I guessed he was going to say a speech, too, and I didn’t know he was going to do that. My left side where Daddy was sitting close got cold.

Everyone was staring at Daddy, only Mommy wasn’t. She was looking down at a tissue she was holding in her lap, and she was squeezing it with one hand and squeezing my arm with the other hand. It was very quiet in the church room, and Daddy didn’t say anything for a long time. I started to think he was just going to stand there and then people were going to get bored, but then he made a coughing sound in his throat like he had to make room for his words.

Daddy took out a piece of paper from the pocket of his suit jacket and started to read what it said on it: “I want to thank everyone for coming today and helping us say good-bye to our son Andy.” The paper in his hands was shaking so much, I didn’t know how he was even reading it. His voice was shaking, too, like the paper. He made a long break, and maybe he was only saying thank you, but then he said more, the words coming out slowly and quietly: “A week ago my son’s life was cut short in the most horrific way I can imagine.” Break. “Never in a million years do you think something like this could ever happen to you…your family. Your child! And yet here we are. It’s hard to believe this is our reality now and we are supposed to continue on living our lives somehow, without him….” Daddy put the piece of paper down and made the sound again in his throat a few times.

“I’m…I’m sorry, I’ll keep this short. There is now a big gaping hole in our lives where a week ago there was our smart, funny, outgoing boy with his big personality. Andy always made us laugh and he made us…so proud, every day. He was an amazing son and loving brother, the best we could have ever asked for. I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around how to keep on living like this, without him, with that huge hole in our lives where my son is supposed to be. He was taken from us,…and I don’t know how anything will ever make sense again without him.”

Daddy looked down at the piece of paper like he was trying to find the spot where he stopped reading earlier. I could see his chin was shaking. He kept looking at the paper and said: “I want to ask all of you to please keep Andy and the memories you have of him close and carry him with you always.”

Mommy started shaking next to me. She let go of my arm and crossed her arms in front of her belly and leaned forward, so her head almost touched her legs, and her shoulders went up and down from crying. All around us people cried, and the sadness was like a big heavy blanket all around us and on top of us.

I thought about Daddy’s speech, and I watched Mommy and everyone else cry, and it all didn’t feel like real life. Because Daddy did it, too: he didn’t talk about Andy like how he actually was. And so it was like everyone was crying and being sad, but not about the actual Andy, just a version of him that wasn’t the right one. It was like no one was saying good-bye properly to him. I felt like I wanted to stand up and yell at everyone to stop lying about my brother.

The sadness blanket didn’t go away even after we left the church room, and it got more heavy when we went to the cemetery. We stood around Andy’s grave with our shoes in the mud and we got wet from the rain. I tried not to look at the deep, dark hole in the ground that Andy’s casket was going into, and I tried to keep my eyes on the big tree that was right next to his grave. It was full of yellow and orange leaves that were shiny from the rain. It looked like the whole tree was on fire. I thought it was the most beautiful tree I ever saw, and I was happy that it was going to be right there, next to Andy’s grave.

After Andy’s casket went in the hole, it was like the sadness blanket got too heavy for Mommy and she couldn’t stand up anymore with it on top of her. Daddy and Mimi had to hold her up from the sides and put her in the car. And it stayed heavy on my shoulders, too, all the way home, and it made it hard for me to get up the stairs. I could only be upstairs for a little while, Grandma said, because people were coming over, and that was not good because all I wanted to do was be in my hideout.