Page 4 of Swimming in Grief (Monster Match season two)
Reuben
Carol called me the next day, which was Saturday, and asked if I wanted to come pick up Kyle’s personal affects; his body had been delivered to the mortuary that morning, and they were planning to cremate him that afternoon. It was a good excuse for me to get out of the house that felt as empty as if I had never lived there. The sun was bright, almost too bright. The world was continuing to spin, even as my own world had ground to a staggering halt.
I drove to Blue Skies with my window down. As I stopped at a red light, the sound of laughter from the sidewalk nearby caught my attention. A young couple were standing in front of a restaurant and posing for a selfie with a phone. My heart ached. They looked so happy. They probably had decades together ahead of them. Or, maybe they didn’t. Maybe tonight the young man would have an allergic reaction to shellfish, or the woman would fall down a flight of steps. Happiness was only guaranteed for the moment. At any time, a stray bullet could come flying, or a car could jump the curb, or a decorative stone could fall off of a building. I brooded over the unknown future of these two strangers, the king of death, a grim reaper seeing only darkness, my mind lost in a black swirl of despair.
A horn blared at me, making me jump, and I realized the light had turned green while I had been lost in thought. I gave the guy behind me a quick wave and hurried through the intersection, keeping my eyes focused on the road. The last thing I needed right now was to get into an accident. As tempting as it was to think about turning the wheel and just smashing into a building or something, I couldn’t let those dark, intrusive thoughts take over.
I parked at the funeral home and went in. It was cool inside, the air conditioner making the air a stark contrast from outside. And there was a smell to the place, I realized. I hadn’t noticed it yesterday. But today, it felt like it was assaulting my senses, thick and cloying in my throat. Flowers and chemicals and something else. Did sorrow have a smell? If it did, I was sure this was it. I coughed into my elbow, tears forming in my eyes, though whether from the smell or the emotions racing through me, I had no idea.
Calvin, the son, was sitting at the desk inside the office area and looked up as I stood in the entryway. He smiled at me, the small, sympathetic smile I was rapidly growing accustomed to. “Hello, Mr. Thompson,” he said politely, waving me into the office.
The office still had the same sickly-sweet smell to it as I sat. There was a bowl of peppermints on the desk in front of me. I took one and popped it into my mouth, letting the cool bite take over my senses. Calvin gave me a knowing look before he reached beneath the desk. He pulled up two paper grocery bags, setting them on the desk.
“This one has Kyle’s personal affects,” he said gently, motioning to one. “There’s a card on the front listing all of them.” He nodded at the other one. “These are his clothes that were taken off of him at the morgue, but I have to warn you, they’re pretty… unpleasant. If you want them, you can have them, but otherwise, I can put them in with him to be cremated.”
I took the first bag, sucking on the peppermint in my mouth as I scanned down the inventory list. On it was his cell phone, a chapstick, a pen, his wallet and everything that was in it down to the last penny and reward card, and his wedding ring. I glanced quickly inside to confirm it was all there before turning to Calvin again. Another person whose expertise it would be best to trust in this matter, I figured. “Yes, if that could go with him,” I said, nodding my head at the other bag. I didn’t want to see his bloody clothing; that was not a memory I needed. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”
Calvin quickly took the bag and set it back down out of sight behind the desk. “You’re welcome, Mr. Thompson. Is there anything else I can do for you right now, or any questions I can answer?”
“No,” I said, crunching the peppermint in my mouth. The crack of it sounded like the snap of a whip in the quiet space. “Thank you, the lists you gave me have been very helpful.”
“Good,” Calvin said, seeming to perk up a little at that. “It’s so hard dealing with death, especially when it happens so suddenly. I think having the information readily available really makes a difference.”
“It does,” I said, hugging the paper bag to my chest.
When I got home, I pulled the items out of the bag one by one and laid them out. The items were so familiar, yet so foreign at the same time. They were the things that Kyle had used daily, and I could see all of the little wear patterns on them. The leather slick and shiny on his wallet where it had slid in and out of his pocket so many times. The place where the writing on the side of the pen had been rubbed away from where he held it. The chapstick nearly gone in its little tube. I picked up his cell phone. One corner had a pretty good spider-web of a crack in it, but most of the screen was relatively unblemished. I noticed that the screen looked like it had been cleaned recently. I wondered if there had been blood on it before it was returned to me.
I tried to turn it on, but the battery was dead. I would have to plug it in. Posting on social media would be the easiest way to reach the people who needed to know, though that seemed like a terrible way for people to find out someone they knew had died. But I couldn’t bear the thought of having to call so many people, many of whom I did not know well, and have the same conversation over and over again. So, I posted on my own social media, trying to strike the right balance between too much information and not enough. I posted on Kyle’s profiles too, and then I did my best to set my phone aside. I was getting notifications left and right, but I knew that most of them would all be the same thing. So sorry for your loss, lots of love, let me know if you need anything. It was all too mind-numbing, and I didn’t want to think about it anymore.
The days leading up to the funeral were a blur. I know Dex and Jacky came over several times, always bringing food with them, whether it was fast food or something homemade. Information for the funeral was sent out via email and social media. On Monday night, the night before the funeral, Jacky brought over a box filled with homemade cards from Kyle’s students. Some of them had stories about Mr. Thompson in them, some of them had sketches in various levels of talent, lots of them had hearts and tear drops drawn on them.
It warmed me inside to see so much love expressed for Kyle from his students, who were everything to him. We had never had kids of our own, a lot of it having to do with prejudice against gay couples. But Kyle worked at the school, and I volunteered with local programs that worked with at-risk youth, so we knew we were making a difference, even a small one, in the lives of each child we worked with. It still ended up surprising me when I came to the mortuary on Tuesday, and they had to add standing room out into the vestibule for Kyle’s funeral.
The funeral was led by a local minister, Pastor Jones, that I had known from some of the youth programs I volunteered with. We kept the service simple. Pastor Jones had asked if I wanted to speak at the funeral, but I had declined. I had never been good at public speaking, and I knew I would not hold it together if I did. Jacky got up and read through the biography of Kyle’s life that she and I had written out, especially touching on how much Kyle had meant to his students. Then Pastor Jones invited people to come up front and say a few words about Kyle if they wanted to. Several of his teacher friends and two current students came up and shared sweet stories.
The rest of that day went by in a blink. It was a flurry of handshakes, hugs, small smiles, soft voices. Each of Kyle’s students came up to me to say how sorry they were and that they would miss Mr. Thompson. Several of them were crying, and I had a big wet spot on the front of my suit jacket by the time all of them had come through. We ate a meal prepared by the catering company I hired, which I barely tasted. And then it was time to go home. Jacky and Dex brought a box of cards out to my car, and I carried the urn with Kyle’s ashes and a small flower arrangement in my arms. I fastened them both into the passenger seat of my car. The urn looked so small. How could a man with so much life and love fit into such a small container? The human body really was made up of hardly anything.
And that was it. I was alone. The funeral was done. I had gone from a lifeboat with a few steady hands to assist to suddenly being adrift on the water with no help in sight. What did I need to do? There were places that needed to be contacted, no doubt plenty of paperwork to fill out. The world continued its spin around the solar system while I stood numbly in place, my own world crumbling like a sand castle under a wave. There would probably be a few check-ins for a few days from people, but even those would fall off.
I don’t remember driving home, but I must have, because I found myself sitting on the floor of my living room, my suit jacket tossed over the couch, sorting through the cards from the funeral. More paper to deal with. I was completely wrung out. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t even summon the energy for that anymore. I had cried more in the last few days than I had my entire life. I didn’t even think it was possible to cry that much. And now, I couldn’t. I was too exhausted. The thought of doing anything other than sitting on the floor felt like trying to scale a mountain. I sat there for hours until the sunlight started to fade, and the room darkened. I carried Kyle’s urn upstairs to our bedroom and put him on the nightstand next to me, because I didn’t know where else to put him. “Good night, sweetie,” I said softly to it as I settled into the cold, lonely sheets. Silence was the only reply.