Wakes Are More Depressing than Funerals

The last time I saw Ashley was at the eighth grade graduation dance. She was dancing with Andrew under an emergency light, her Greek nose casting sharp shadows across her cheek. Her brown hair was long and it brushed across Andrew’s shirtsleeve as they swayed to the music. She looked happy and pretty.
But that was three years ago and today she looks like she has been hit by a bus. Her hair is blonde now and she is a beautiful girl still, but grief does not look good on anyone. Today is her brother’s wake and I am standing next to my mother in a long line to tell Ashley’s family how sorry we are. Everyone around me shifts awkwardly because we know there is nothing we can say that will make this easier. They are burying a 23 year-old. No one can say anything but sorry.
Bryan died of a heroin overdose on Christmas Eve. I am watching Ashley’s sister Kaitlyn and wondering how she is still standing. She found her brother in his room, rigid and blue, needle sticking out of his arm. She was supposed to bring him down for dinner. I am glad now that I am so afraid of needles.
There are plenty of other things I am afraid of, like spiders and death. Everyone is afraid of death. Ashley does not look afraid now. She looks tired and confused because that cannot possibly be her brother in that box. He hated the suit he is wearing now. He liked soccer and politics. He worked on Capitol Hill as an intern. Some congressman is here.
I’m not sure I ever saw Bryan until today. He was always so much older than us, but I guess now we’ll have our chance to catch up. He will be 23 for the rest of Ashley’s life, even if she lives to be 100. He will always be the sweet, smart, 23-year-old brother who had a problem he just couldn’t seem to leave behind. Now he has left everything behind. I wonder if he believed in heaven.
I think I believe in heaven. I am not religious, but I like the idea of God. In first grade, I drew a picture of God, and he was blue and strong like the sky, with a handlebar mustache. Ashley sat next to me in first grade. Someone must have sat next to Bryan in first grade. I wonder if they know he is dead.
Ashley’s mother keeps saying she’s sure he didn’t mean to; he didn’t kill himself. He’s dead, so I can’t imagine what the difference is, but I am not his mother. I think she wants to know there was nothing more she could have done. She is a sweet lady. I’m sure she did all she could.
Finally I am at the front of the line. I hug Ashley and tell her how sorry I am, and she says, “Thank you.” I know this has happened a hundred times tonight, but once more cannot hurt.
I selfishly hope that if I should see Ashley again three years from now, she will be happy again. It hurts me deeply to see good people suffer. I have this ridiculous belief that the world should be fair. But how could she ever be happy again after this? Truthfully, I know she will be. People are funny like that. Eventually grief must be folded into an old shoe box, tied up with a beautiful ribbon and shoved under the bed. Otherwise, we may trip over it each night before we go to sleep. We may take it out on Christmas night, or the morning of our 40th birthday or some odd Tuesday when we cannot drag ourselves out of bed. Because no matter how tired, confused, angry or sad we may be, we are not the one who died. There is so much more left for us to begin that we cannot dwell on what has ended.