Desert Sunset
VII
Her memorial was today. We were all there, afterward, to release her ashes into the desert sunset. Those were her wishes. Sara didn't want fanfare or a grand memorial service with all the bells and whistles. She could have had all of that and more. None of us ever realized how much we loved her until she was gone. The worst part is, I don't think she did either.
I miss her, we all do. I keep waiting to turn a corner and find her hunched over a microscope, exhausting herself over a case. I think it didn't hit me, not until today that she's really gone. Someone, I'm not sure who, blew up a picture of her. It wasn't from her ID. I'd never actually seen it before. It was of Sara smiling, and not the fake smile that she put on for us at the lab, no this was a true, toothy grin. I've never seen that smile, but I don't think I've ever really done much to earn it. She'd always been the 'woman sent to investigate me' then she'd been 'Grissom's girl'. Now she's being called a fallen hero.
There were so many people at the memorial service. It was a simple set up, but it drew people from everywhere, and I mean everywhere. San Francisco, Las Angeles, Boston, New York, Hawaii, and one couple flew in from Ireland, just to say goodbye to Sara.
Goodbye. God, how can I say goodbye to her? It doesn't even feel like I knew her well enough. There were stories, stories about Sara. How is it that I found out more about her at her funeral then in the five years I knew her? I think all of us sort of felt that way, like we were just meeting her right then.
It was us, though, that she wanted to spread her ashes. It said it right there in black and white, in her chicken scratch scrawl, 'Warrick Brown, Nick Stokes, Greg Sanders, Catherine Willows, Gil Grissom, Jim Brass, Sofia Curtis and Al Robbins.' She called us her nearest and dearest friends, her family.
Staring out at the desert sunset, watching her precious ashes float on the wind, I feel a tear slip down my cheek and I don't bother to wipe it away. Her family. She said she hadn't deserved us. No, we didn't deserve her, not for the five years we had her, not for five minutes. Yet, as undeserving and I was, I wanted more. All I got, all we all got, though, was the desert sunset.