The day of Kayla's funeral came. It was a closed casket funeral.
Nina went out and bought a decent-looking dress that didn't break the bank, because none of her dresses for the occasional date weren't black. She considered skipping out, but she went just to see how it turned out. Besides, it might help her answer her question. It was a pipe dream, but dreams keep us all going, right?
Nina met up with the surviving two As in the lobby. They were both red-eyed, and when A-B saw her, she fell into her and clutched her tight. Nina hugged her back out of obligation.
“I can't believe she's gone,” A-B cried into her ear. Her husband was standing off to the side, holding their baby, who wasn't making a fuss.
She held Nina for an eternity before letting go. Then it was A-C's turn to hug her. She didn't hug as tight or for as long.
“You okay?” Nina asked the both of them after A-C let go.
A-C nodded while biting her lower lip. “I'll be fine.”
There wasn't much else to say or do, so they entered the nave, and Nina joined them on the same pew toward the rear, because they were the closest things to people she knew.
Kayla was a Christian, specifically a Mennonite, so the funeral was held in a church, and a pastor did most of the talking. Nina didn't know why. Kayla didn't attend church on Sundays, didn't spread the good news of Jesus to people on the street, and had gotten into one or two fist fights. Holding a Christian funeral for her seemed like throwing her a graduation party for graduating from a college she applied to but didn't get accepted to. The pastor went up to speak, and he spoke in Bible passages:
The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil.
Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.
Isaiah 57: 1-2
Bible passages became a unit of time for this funeral. Three Bible passages later, the first eulogy came from Kayla's parents. Nina hadn't seen them since graduation. It was amazing how much they had aged. Or perhaps that was from all the crying they were doing these days. Her father talked, because her mother couldn't.
“Kayla was...When she was born, i-it was...it was the h-habbist ays of our libes.” He paused, holding back the tears, as he had been doing. “My wife and I, we ad trieb for so long to have a baby. We trieb for more than seben years. And when we founb out we were goin t ave a-a baby, we were...we were...” He drew his wife in close. “We just wish we coulv'v done somethin for her! Then maybe...maybe she'd still be ere. Kayla, we're so sorry!” With that, he couldn't talk anymore.
The pastor came up and reassured them that they would get to see her again once God was ready for them to.
Two Bible passages later, the next relative to deliver a eulogy was a cousin. Nina didn't know her; she was probably a distant cousin. Also quite young. Fifteen tops, maybe. She had written a poem, and when she got to the pulpit, she read it:
Knock
Knock
Knock
It's the Reaper knocking.
He's come to say so long.
Life's been good, and life's been long, but now, you ask, what comes next?
Are we let into a golden paradise,
where the concept of sadness is but a myth?
Are we sent to a horrid place,
where we suffer for all the ills we've done?
Are we reborn into this world as a new person,
with no memories of our time from before?
Or are we cast into an inky darkness,
feeling nothing, knowing nothing, and simply being nothing?
What awaits us beyond this life?
And how are we to know without waiting for the Reaper's knock?
“That was really good,” one old lady said to another in the pew before Nina.
No, it really wasn't.
Three Bible passages later, another cousin Kayla used to bring up now and then in high school told this story of how when they were kids, Kayla's favorite place to play was in a sandbox. She was so obsessed with making the perfect sandcastle that she drew pictures of it. Her illustrations were nothing more than shoddy copies of castles of Disney movies she'd watched on repeat, but she was so obsessed with those castles that she would fill her plastic pail with water from the kitchen sink and drag it outside to make the sand wet. Then her mother would freak when she came in covered head to toe in wet sand. She never did finish that perfect sandcastle.
Two Bible passages later, an aunt talked about what fun Kayla was and how they often spent their Friday nights at the bar together. She told this story about how Kayla once got so drunk that she started talking to a cardboard cutout, thinking it was her aunt. If work hadn't started getting in the way, she said, they wouldn't have stopped going to the bar.
One Bible passage later, a man whose relationship Nina didn't catch talked about what a hard worker she was. “I could tell she was always going to make it somewhere,” he said. “Somehow, someway, she was going places...I guess she didn't see it that way.”
Zero Bible passages later, the pastor return to his pulpit. The very last thing he had to quote was, incredibly enough, not the Bible. It was the letter Kayla left. Six pages total. Nina wondered why dying people always had so much to say.
“I won't be reading the whole thing, because much of it tells of Kayla's heartaches that led to her unfortunate and untimely end. However, the last page is full of final thoughts and farewells to the people closest to her.” The pastor put the first five pages aside and read the final page:
“Mom and Dad thank you for everything youve ever given to me. I was hoping to someday hit it big with a CEO position or a winning lottery ticket so that I could give back every dollar you ever spent on me. I'm sorry I couldnt accomplish that, I love you both so much and I hope you can both find happiness without me.
“Kelly you were a great person to work with. I always looked forward to our shifts together and you were the one thing that made my night job tolerable. You kick so much ass.
“Cherie you were the greatest cousin a girl could ask for. I always loved your visits and I was so heartbroken when you moved away. I really wish you couldve stuck around then we couldve gone drinking like you promised youd take me to do when I turned twenty one.
“Penny if I had to name three things that I loved most about high school, youd be one of them. You knew how to have fun, but you were also so sweet and kind, and I had a feeling youd be a great mother one of these days and I was right. Youre a great mom plus your baby is the cutest thing Ive ever seen. I know hes going to grow up and be a great man.
“Carrie youre the second of the three best things from high school. I was proud to call you my friend when you made the valedictorian speech at graduation and I was always a little jealous at how smart you also were. Im happy that youre so successful already in life and I know that one of these days youre going to touch the stars.
“Nina youre the third of the best three things. I thought you were the funniest of the four of us and to be honest I was concerned when you werent acting like your old self at the aquarium. I wondered if that was really you and I didnt initially like the person you had become. But then I realized that you hadnt changed but matured in ways me, Penny, or Carrie hadnt. We may have gotten into a lot of trouble in high school but if we could do it all over again I think youd be the one to keep us all out of trouble. And you were right, that was a great song.”
ns 15.158.61.12da2
