Deaths

Maybe it sounds dramatic, but sometimes life finds ways to be the most poetic in the most awful moments.

I remember in middle school, when my friend invited me over and warned me about her mums hair.

"She's sick, so it looks different than last time you saw her."

She had gone grey all over. But I never thought about what it meant. Years later, in tenth grade, it was worse.

That same year I was accepted to go on an exchange to Quebec. I was excited, it was a chance to go and do something new. Maybe I was running, but I couldn't figure out what from.

Three months I was there, and my friend, my best friend, her mum was getting worse. It's not my story to tell of how hard it was, thats not fair. It wasn't me losing a mum. But I cried alot that exchange, for my friend and her family.

Maybe I should have tried harder to have a good time, but it was hard to think of other things.

I got back, and I never found the time to go see her. Before, I mean. I guess I was afraid of death-maybe- or maybe something else.

She died. May 26th. I never knew what to say to my friend, I wish I had words that could fix it. But I didn't, and I think I did a horrible job at being a friend for her then.

A few months later my grandpa, the one on my dads side, had a heart attack. He was in the hospital a little while, my dad went out to see him, I don't think he woke up.

My mum texted me at school, I didn't even tell anyone. I went to the bathroom and cried.

We saw him before the funeral. All grey, cold to the touch. My whole family sat in that hospital smelling chapel, with the sunset filtering through the stain glass window. We talked about him, and then everyone cried around the table he was laid on.

He used to make little wooden toys, and dollhouses so pretty we didn't get one until we were too old to use them. We danced at his funeral. Because I couldn't stand sitting there and having everyone look at us like we were the saddest things on earth.

A few months later my other grandpa, the one on my mums side, fell into a coma. Tubes and moniters kept him alive for a while, because nobody could bear to let him leave. It was his birthday, so we all went to his hospital room and ate and laughed, and tried not to cry. The hospital staff had to come in to tell us to keep quiet, there were others in palliative care trying to rest. No fun, I guess.

We had a keg at his funeral, I got up to speak. I don't think I did very well.

My grandma, on my dads side, passed a year after her husband. She didn't want people driving in the snow, so we had her funeral in the summer.

I think there were more tears. I wrote one last letter to her, and read it out loud. It made people cry more. I guess I was getting better at it.

My brothers friend died in a car accident when I was in grade twelve. He was twenty. His funeral was open casket. He still had some cuts from the crash on his face.

He was in choir, the best singer, really. Strong voices aren't easy to come by.

In grade ten, a friend (mostly my brothers) lost his dad to cancer. I remember he came in to band practice that morning, with big sunglasses on. Someone made a remark, and the teacher yelled at that kid.

I walked an hour from work to catch the tail end of the funeral.

I guessed I learned that, mostly, life is messy, and awful in many ways. Cruelly, it still goes on, is even beautiful, in the worst of times.

And it will never change. The world will keep being; with or without us.

Theres no way back to what it felt like before all of this happened, before we had to grow up so fast.

But the world just keeps going.