On the day I come home
I look at you and your throne
Every joy I’ve seen is waste
When I touch your gorgeous face
-Creature (Penny and Sparrow)
On Tuesday night I went to a funeral. A funeral for a boy who had just turned 18, a man, or that’s what society tells us at least, that we’re adults when we turn 18. His name was Drew, I had never met Drew before, or maybe I had, I can’t really remember. I’d like to think I had because then the only version of him in my mind wouldn’t be the one of him lying in a casket. Lying there with his eyes closed, hands folded, cheeks sunk in. Sleeping, but not breathing.
I walked up to the casket, hesitant, scared. I was scared because he was right there, Drew, a boy I’d never met before, was right there, but not really. Maybe I was scared that his eyes would open, or that his fingers would twitch, or maybe I wasn’t scared, maybe I was hopeful. But my hope was hopeless because he didn’t move an inch, not a fraction of an inch. I turned back around and grabbed my mom’s hand, scared I might fall over if she wasn’t there to steady me, she grabbed me back, wrapped my cold hands in her warm ones, her warm shaky hands. I thought about what she was thinking about, what if it was me, or my beautiful sister, or my baby brother there instead. One of us and not Drew.
We sat down in a pew together, asking a sobbing woman to scoot down so there was enough room for us. I sat and clutched the pew beneath me and the hand beside me even harder, scared that they both might vanish because none of this felt real. But it was real, unfortunately, it was all real because I heard the sobs. Sobs amplified by the Church’s high walls. I watched a boy put on sunglasses in a dark sanctuary and slump forward, head between his knees as he let out a sob that sounded more like a cry for help.
It smelled like honey in the room, the church smelled sweet, but the lump in my throat was bitter, and growing. A man, a big man, walked past me, but not as big as he’d been the day I met him over summer, his strength was drained, his shoulders slumped, and his head hung low. He stopped at the casket and he touched Drew’s sleeping face, he kissed his son’s smooth forehead and then fell into a pew at the front because he couldn’t stand to see his son, not like that.
Another man came in, dressed in a black robe, he addressed the crowd. He asked that people squeeze in the pews because there weren’t enough seats, a lot of people loved Drew, a lot of people love Drew. He asked Drew’s hockey team to sit up in the choir loft, so they did. Forty or so high school boys got up and shuffled up the steps. They seated themselves behind the casket, they had Drew’s back now, like Drew had had theirs.
Drew’s mom spoke first and that’s when I cried. I cried and she laughed, she laughed about when the doctor first told her she was pregnant with twins, when she knew which baby was Drew. She laughed about the time Drew bit his brother Kyle, and the time Drew asked too many questions, and many more times, too many to remember. She laughed, but it was hollow, I had heard her laugh before, before the day she lost her baby boy, this was a different laugh now, empty. And then she cried because now it was her turn to ask the questions, why, and what could she have done.
I cried too, because I thought about a mom who had to bury her son, about a father who had to be strong for a family who was heavy with grief, for a brother who lost his best friend, for sisters who lost their knight in shining armor, and for family and friends that maybe couldn’t remember the last time they told Drew they loved him, cause maybe that could’ve saved him, maybe, maybe not.
When the service was over I hugged Drew’s mom, I told her I was sorry and that it was going to be okay, but I wasn’t sure if it was going to be okay. I told her I would take care of the dogs if that’s what she needed, if that would help. Then I left, I got back in the car that had been rich with conversation only an hour and a half before, but was now overflowing with silence. Until my mom broke the silence and said that she hoped she never had to do that, to bury one of her babies, and I rolled my eyes. I felt bad that I rolled my eyes, but I was scared if I didn’t that the tears would come and the lump in my throat would grow so big that it would choke me, and then she really would have to bury her baby.
I dropped her off at home and told her I was going to go get dinner, and I did, but first I cried. I cried and screamed at God with my windows down and the music too loud. I cried because I was angry and I was angry because I was sad, and my mom was sad, and Drew’s mom was sad and we were all crying and angry and sad. Something inside of me, some kind of creature had clawed it’s way up from the depths and it was forcing itself out. I cried and screamed and banged on the steering wheel until I felt a little better. Then I told God I was sorry that I’d screamed at Him and went to the store to get dinner.
I took the long way home and put the roof down. I drove a little faster so I could feel the sting of my hair whipping my face, it didn’t feel good, but I felt good because I could feel it. I sat in the driveway and turned the car off and talked to Drew. I told him I was sorry we’d never met before and that I was sorry his time here was short. I asked him what it looked like up there, if it was pretty and if he’d seen the man with long hair and smiling eyes yet, I was sure he had, but I asked anyways. Then I walked inside and told my parents that I was fine, but I didn’t look them in the eyes when I said that.
I walked up the stairs and collapsed in bed, I felt the cotton sheets wrapped around me and thought about the satin sheets wrapped around Drew. My cat jumped up on my bed and pawed at my face until I let him under the covers. He curled up by my chest with his little ears pressed to my heart, my beating heart. I let sleep come as tears rolled down my face and my cat’s purrs urged me to close my tired eyes. I woke up in the morning with swollen eyelids and breath in my lungs and thanked God for another day.
Maybe someone could’ve saved Drew from what happened, but probably not. No amount of hugs or pats on the back could have provided him with the feeling he was chasing. We’re all fighting the same battle as Drew, constantly searching for love and acceptance and happiness in things and ways that provide only a promise of love, but never deliver. We’re all creatures for His love, but the maze of traps and promises of popularity and poison and empty love from people who do more harm than good, sometimes drags us down into dark places. And He’s always there with us, I know that, but sometimes I forget, and maybe Drew forgot, but He was there holding his hand the whole time. And I know He felt for Drew because He loved Drew and He still loves Drew and so when he saw that Drew was hurting He told him it was time to come home, He couldn’t bear to watch His beautiful and perfect creation suffer, so He said to him “come home.” Now Drew is filled with happiness, the real kind and not the worldly kind, and he’s up there looking down instead of down here looking up.
