the end of the memorial story
It shouldn’t be hard to figure out what I’m doing…It’s Tuesday, again. It’s been 5 weeks. And I still haven’t finished the Memorial story. Let me get on with it so I can start talking about happier times. Some of it has come gleaming through with the little posters that I find in my timeline. There is so much more though.
I have to write through the pain. Can’t go around it.
Saturday, October 29, 2016 The Memorial, and The Scene, part 4
(Wow, it has taken 4 parts. I hope this is it.)
I turned to see the football players behind me several times. So handsome. So strong. I scanned the audience some more. Old lover/not current lover anymore didn’t come. Ms. Office lady that we both liked….I didn’t see her. Or the other office lady…or any of the men folk…I’m referring to people from the job.
I watched the family like a hawk. Love’s son acted just like a child would. I felt for him. I felt for everyone.
I did enjoy the stories that were told and appreciated the laughter and I wondered if this was how all memorials went. I wondered what would people say when I die. Would they lie? I don’t have a lot of experience with death.
I enjoyed the story told by his wife’s sister, I believe…when she laughed about her being proud about her “young man.” Love had repeatedly mentioned to me that he was married to an older woman. I didn’t really know what he meant. I never asked. See. Once again, I do that shit. I enjoyed the story the Pastor told about meeting Love…and how he just had his own thing about him. Yes indeed. (I can’t wait to talk about that.) I might have even laughed. If I did, it was so I wouldn’t cry.
Every time I saw the camera man, I put my head down, just as I had tried to move around at the vigil. I’ve always been camera shy. But I felt like I didn’t look like myself (I’ll come back to this later, too.). And I began to feel like I was about to pass out. It was so hot. Why is it so hot in Black churches? My homegirl was texting me to calm down and remember it was about Love. I told her I was about to run out.
And then, at the end, when we stood up to let the family exit, I saw that bitch. I couldn’t believe she was there. I dreaded running into her any time I was anywhere significant in St. Pete. But of course she would be there, she had been responsible for getting him into that first job that would change the course of his life for the better, mostly, even if we couldn’t stand her. I was hoping she wouldn’t recognize me. She smiled and waved at me. I wanted to puke. But I waved back, though I shouldn’t have. I don’t owe her even that. I was trying out being fake, like her. Love and I had had PLENTY of conversations about her…his conspiracy theories (of which he had many. so exciting he was) surrounding why she did me the way she did. Gross. However, I was amused, thinking about the irony of it all.
I slowly walked across the street to the next event. I wasn’t sure what it was. I walked in and could smell the food. I got weak. I sat alone, hoping that bitch wouldn’t come in. She didn’t. A pretty, natural girl asked to sit at the table. I told her, “Sure.” So, I texted my mom and friend and asked what part of the event this was. There was food. It was making me nauseous. I hadn’t eaten since Tuesday morning.
I was about to leave when the wife’s sister, I think, came to me and asked me to write something in the booklet that was on the table…a memory of Bo. I wrote something. I got up. I walked slowly, wondering if I should stand in line to greet the family. I looked at the painful faces. I left. I walked slowly to the car, passing the same men who stared at me when I arrived. It was over.
I didn’t go to the memorial to say goodbye. I went for a different type of closure…because I live in my head. I live in daydreams, lucid dreams, night dreams, fantasies, plays, and scenes that I create in my head. …Because Love and I always talked about otherworldly things, existing beyond THIS world, I NEEDED to go so that…so that…I could say he was dead and could have others around me to confirm it to be true. I felt that otherwise, I could still picture myself waiting for him to come back to my house…to text me back….to call. It was over, or at least, in the physical sense. I did it.
