Gone?

There is nothing I could think of to say as I stood there staring at you. The words that had just come out of your mouth had truly flabbergasted me. How could he possibly be dead? He was not even thirty years old. I just did not get it.

After you leave I just sit on my bed staring at the wall in front of me. It seems as if it was only yesterday that I was sitting in the living room talking to him. Now I would never get the chance to tell him everything that needed to be said. I clutch my pillow tight to my body squeezing as if it were him. Tears roll down my face. Lying myself back down against the pillows I cried myself to sleep.

The next morning I wake up praying that last night had just been a terrible nightmare but knowing damn well it had not been. My baby cousin was truly gone. The young man I considered my brother from the very start was dead and I would never get to see him again.

For the next few days, it felt as if I was walking around in a complete trance. Just going through the motions. Yes I was physically there but mentally I had completely checked out. There were times when I wished I could just curl into bed, pull the covers over my head, and just stay there.

The day of the wake was also the day of a horrible snowstorm. We all piled into the van and made the dangerous drive to the funeral home. The entire time I say in the backseat praying that we would not get into a horrible accident and up severely injured or even worse dead. The angels must have been watching over us because we all arrived in one piece.

The moment I walked into the funeral home, I could feel a strange heaviness in the air. This caused me to run into the bathroom in order to compose myself. I took a few deep breaths and splashed water onto my face. "Get a hold of yourself," I said. I almost wished that I had not come. I know it was my cousin but all of the sorrow coupled with my own was already beginning to overwhelm me. As the day rolled on, I struggled to keep my composure among the assault of emotion that were all around me.

When the dinner break came, I was incredibly grateful. Stepping out of the funeral home, I took a deep breath of the frigid, cold air into my lungs. The events of the day had left me with very little appetite but I still forced myself to eat.When my phone rang and it was my boyfriend, I could not help but think thank god I am going to have a shoulder during the night service. Little did I know I would have so much more than just his shoulder to cry on.

After dinner, we all headed back for the night service. On the short ride back, I tried to prepare myself. When we got back, I sat down on couches along one wall of the room. My boyfriend sat down on one side of me and my mother sat down on the other. There was this piano concerto coming out of the radio. Suddenly I heard a whisper directly next to my left ear. "Don't fall asleep."

"I'm not asleep," I insisted.

Both my mom and my boyfriend looked at me and said "I never said you were." I shook my head.

After a little while I hear that same voice again. "Can't we liven up this place?" This time I recognized the voice as my cousin. The same cousin that was lying feet away from me in the coffin. Now most people would be scared to hear the voice of their dead relative but me I was used to it by now. The piece of information that I failed to give you at the begin of our little tale is that I am a psychic medium. In laymen's terms, I can speak to the dead. While I know that it is totally inappropriate to laugh at a funeral, I began to giggle.

My mom looked over at me. " What are you laughing at?"

"I was just thinking that if Jonathan was here . He would probably tell us to stop moping and that we should be celebrating his life and not mourning his death."