“This concludes our time together”

We raced to the gravesite after the funeral.

Late, because of my absentmindedness:

I forgot we needed to bury your body.

My brain still hadn’t realized you were dead.

 

My wee infant screamed the whole five minute drive, because she woke up from a long nap in my arms, and I had disturbed her to buckle her and she was super hungry. Because I didn’t feed her before. Because of my absentmindedness:

I forgot we needed to bury your body.

My brain still hadn’t realized you were dead.

 

I nursed her tiny body in the front seat of the car, in the blistering heat, both our bodies sweating in this foreign heat. He corralled the two toddlers towards the dark tent where the family was gathered to bury your body. I could see all of them over there, across the sunny cemetery, huddled under the tent trying to grasp every bit of shade, waiting for this tiny stomach to be filled. I had forgotten what time they wanted to start. Because,

I forgot we needed to bury your body.

My brain still hadn’t realized you were dead.

 

I was hurried by him, we had misremembered the time, and they wanted to know if I could feed the babe on a chair, in front of your dead body. I clasped and buttoned and burped, and scrambled out of the sticky car, praying the babe was satiated for the moment and I wouldn’t have to expose my breast under a blistering hot cover in front of your dead body. And I robotically and frantically walked the forever distance toward the tent with the only shade that everyone crowded under. Around the navy blue box and the ridiculous bright blue fuzzy chair covers. My feet hurt and my heart blushed, realizing I had delayed the pain for your wife, your children, your parents, made them wait for this agonizing ceremony of bidding your body farewell.

Because,

I forgot we needed to bury your body.

My brain still hadn’t realized you were dead.

 

I found the group, found some shade, and hoped to show up unseen. But I was kindly offered a chair I declined, and internally begged things to move forward with the focus on you, not on me and my hungry babe.

 

The pastor said some words that felt empty. Said some prayer with some words that bounced through and out of my head. Then said that ridiculous statement he had said at the end of the funeral service: “this concludes our time together,” closed his book and stood there.

Your wife and kids stood up and left. And everyone followed.

I stared in disbelief at the navy blue box that sat untouched. And the obnoxious fuzzy blue chairs that were now empty staring at that box.

And I couldn’t hold in the words or the hot tears that escaped me: “that’s it?!”

I couldn’t leave. I needed more.

Because,

I forgot we needed to bury your body.

My brain still hadn’t realized you were dead.

 

And our dad wrapped his arm around me and told me we could stay. I could stay as long as I wanted. So I sat in those ridiculous blue fuzzy hot chairs and I cried for you. For your body. Desperate that the reality would change. That you weren’t dead. That this part wouldn’t happen. And I touched the navy blue box, trying to say goodbye.

 

And I watched the guy with the tool try to get your navy blue box into the rustic black sparkly box, and they couldn’t get it at first, and struggled to get the tools to do the things they needed them to do. And they adjusted and fixed it and closed that sparkly black box and with no ceremony at all, I watched them lower that box into the ground, a cheap silver cross adorning the top. And my toddlers milled around and played, curious and uninterested and children. And my baby slept in his arms. And my body couldn’t understand what was happening but I couldn’t look away. And I tried to make sure my children didn’t fall in the hole that held the black box that held the navy box that held your body.

 

And eventually I walked away.

 

And I came back to keep my children from falling in again. I walked away. And I came back again to keep my children from falling in. And I laughed to myself as I knew you would find this whole thing darkly humorous in its unpolished reality. That you would laugh at the guy backing up his truck, to get the big metal tools they had used to lower you in. You would giggle at the totally unromantic reality of that guy smoking his cigarette over the hole that held the black box that held the navy box that held your body. As my children jumped and played around your grave, and we tried to keep them from climbing on the “big stones”.

 

And I started to remember that we had said goodbye to your body.

 

Because,

I forgot we needed to bury your body.

My brain still hadn’t realized you were dead.

 

I don’t want you to be dead. I still refuse to accept it. You need to be here with me, laughing at this ridiculous situation. You need to be here, realizing how much you were loved. And realizing how much it hurts that your body died. You need to be here, to help me process this, to feel this. You were so good at digging in to the realness of life. You didn’t let me float around in the state of avoidance and denial. I need you to get through this.

 

But we buried your body.

We watched them lower it down.

I hope they put dirt on it later. Because I didn’t find any that I could put on myself.

 

And you’re not here anymore. To force me into accepting the reality of the pain of this.

 

So I’ll write about it. About the realness of it. To remind myself it happened.

 

And hopefully over time my brain won’t forget we buried your body. And it will realize that you died. And I will be able to miss you instead of wonder where you are and why you aren’t here to help me understand your death.

 

Because I miss you.

 

For, “this concludes our time together.”