I pressed my finger tips to the coffin in front of me. The wood felt smooth under my fingers. She was right under this. One thin, cheap layer of material separating me and my Angel. My Angel. Part of me wants to rip the lid off, just to look at her one last time. To plant one last sweet kiss on her lips. To scream at her for leaving me alone. To hold her body close to mine once more.
But the body in there wasn't Angel. Angel, so full of life and spirit, always laughing, always smiling. The…. The thing in there was cold. She was gone, probably watching me from a cloud in the sky. I hope whatever God is up there let her be a girl. Or at least be in drag. Or maybe the Angel up there didn't feel the need to dress up. No, Angel wouldn't be Angel without that part of her. God, I missed her.
The cold, October air whipped around me, but I hardly noticed. I glanced at the gravestone in front of me. Angel Dumott Shunard 1968-1990. I was extremely bothered by that line. The line in between 1968, the year she was born, and 1990, the year she left me. That little line, which was more of a hyphen, actually, stood for her entire life. The twenty-two years she spent on this Earth, and everything she did during that time, all the people she helped, all the laughter she brought, all the love she shared, was all summed up in that itty-bitty line. It wasn't fair.
I watched as they lowered my Angel in the ground. Everyone else had left. It was just me and her. Like the day we first met. I tightened my grasp on her drumsticks. I never thought I'd feel like this. Broken. Alone. It made sense really, I was missing a piece of me. Angel made me complete.
It's amazing how much ten months can change your life. I thought I had it good before. I had a job, friends, and enough money to survive. It was life. I didn't know it could get better. Then she came, and showed me that I hadn't really been living at all. It's not fair. We should have had more time. She should have had more time. Ten months. It seems like such a short time when you say it like that.
"Angel?" I asked.
She looked up at me, "What?"
"What is your definition of a long time?"
"Well, it depends how you measure it," she replied simply, as though she hadn't just given the deepest answer ever.
"Huh?" Collins asked.
Angel giggled and wrapped her arms around the older man's chest. "Are you measuring in minutes? Or years? Or cups of coffee? Sunsets, daylights, midnights?"
Collins was thrown off. "What do you measure it in?"
Angel thought for a moment, then said, "Love."
If you measured in minutes, I had spent about 438,291 with her. Less than a year. Only 1,000 kisses. But if you measured in love, like Angel said, we spent infinity with each other. And I am forever grateful to her for that time. For our little forever. Angel.