I Felt My Child Through a Body Bag
There is no closure on love — a family’s final goodbye.
Two of my remaining children stood on either side of me, holding my hands as I mentally prepared myself to enter the room of the funeral home. I don’t remember who’s hand belonged to whom, but I knew they might have to hold me upright if my heart was unable to handle what was on the other side of the door.
The music coming from the room where my deceased child lay was eerily soothing, and nothing that my son would have appreciated. He was due to be cremated at the end of that day, but we had asked for some alone time with his body — just immediate family.
He had been burned beyond recognition according to the coroner, “the worst collision” in his twenty-year career. No one would allow us to see him.
Yet, we needed to know. To know it was indeed our Benjamin. We would try to secure some semblance of closure that he was indeed gone in any way we could, before his body was reduced to ashes.
The funeral home did its best to make it look like a traditional closed-casket service. Only, there was no casket. They had covered his body with a light-colored quilt, and laid a long, single peace lily across the top — the best they could do on such short notice.
