The rain... I could feel it pitta pattering on my shoulders as the town stood around the casket.
She was being gently lowered into the hole by some ropes held tightly by four men.
Why did they have to put her in the ground?
I watched as the casket hit the earth below, and felt the drops of rain slide down my cheeks. It was autumn, and today felt like the first day of it.
I faced a cold harsh winter ahead... and in a way, the dark night of the soul.
The men got the shovels and tossed muddy dirt onto the hard wooden box.
In a box, that's where she was.
I could feel my parents standing beside me, and I saw Eric stand on the opposite side of the grave. Just crying.
Tears were rolling down my cheeks as well, but I don't think it could be seen in the waters of the rain.
He was holding Margaret's hand tightly, and I wondered if she was only his girlfriend during this period so he could get over the loss.
Everyone was with their partners, children stood by and stared at the hole being slowly covered. The orphans watched the only girl that cared about them, disappear for good.
Hegbert spoke the eulogy, and it was so much more than just words of remembrance.
It was words from the heart.
I stood at the graveside for the longest time, and people all blessed themselves, making a sign of the cross and leaving.
I wanted to ask him... I wanted to ask God why he took away her out of everybody else. I know it was a selfish thought to have... but I wanted to know at that very moment.
Was it because she was too kind? Was it because she was too peaceful? Too good to the world, that the world could no longer have her?
I didn't understand, and I wanted to. I felt like Job that very moment, and I knew in my mind that was a selfish comparison, but I didn't care.
I was angry, I was upset.
I was broken.
Eventually, I was the last one standing at the grave, and my father walked up to me from the car, placing his hand on my shoulder and saying.
"Landon, we need to go home..."
"But I am home..." I uttered, looking at the buried hole, and how my wife was asleep beneath it... for eternity.
I was home when I was with her.
My father was silent for a moment, before continuing.
"We need to take you home..."
I blinked, and looked to the side, seeing his concerned face, and I swallowed. I didn't want to fight. I knew he wouldn't leave me there. My clothes were soaked through and I would catch pneumonia if I didn't leave.
But I didn't want to go.
I nodded my head, tears in my eyes.
"D-dad..." I spoke back and stood facing him. I uttered, "I'm r-really going to miss her..."
He opened his arms up, and I looked at him, astonished. I fell into his hold and cried on his shoulder, not able to keep my sobs in.
He pat me on the back, and I didn't care that this was the first time I had hugged my father in five years, or how distant and strange the hold felt.
I would've collapsed on the ground in tears at that moment if he wasn't there.
"It's okay..." he said to me quietly and I closed my eyes, tears streaming down my face as I wept, "It is going to be okay..."
That's what he told me, and a part of myself foolishly wanted to believe him in that moment. But another part knew that everything had changed.
I had had Jamie for only nine months... I had been a normal guy before I had known her... but I had been a different person then.
I hadn't been in love... I hadn't known Jamie... I had never lost someone before.
I had had Jamie for nine months... and now, I would never have her again.
He let go of me and guided me to the car parked outside the graveyard.
~x~
When we arrived back at the house, we had visitors, but I was angry to see them.
I kept wanting to scream, 'Go to Hegbert! He's the one that has NO ONE now!'
But I had to keep my peace. I shook hands, I nodded... but I didn't want to speak.
After an hour I went to my room and just dropped to my bed, laying there... half dead.
I looked out into the nothingness of space, and just thought... what next?
University... a job... family even?!
No, even in that moment... I knew I could never love another girl.
But I did have to think in that second. What. Next?
Jamie's words entered my head when I had first introduced her to my parents and we had walked around the garden in the back.
She had held a flower and asked me.
'Would you give it back?'
The very question Jamie would, of course, have asked. Would I give back the fortune one day that my father had inherited off of corrupt and evil ways?
I knew in my heart... that was something that I didn't want to think about just at that moment. But still, the question rested.
University...
Go to one of the up-state universities and just move on from all that Jamie had made me see...
There's nothing we could bring with us in this world once we left it.
It was only what we gave that mattered.
I turned away from the empty room and faced the wall on my other side.
It felt like that wall was a metaphor. A block I had placed in front of myself so I wouldn't have to see what Jamie had left for me to do.
Go back to that Landon Carter who was just the average rich kid from uptown who didn't give half a shit about anything?
Or be with her...?
Doing what she would have done.
I could hear a rumble as thunder tore across the sound barrier, and I asked him... laying on my back and pleading.
"Please, tell me what to do..."
I shut my eyes as a tear slipped down my cheek and I begged, saying his name.
"Please, God..."
I felt sunlight pierce into my room from the window just a little way down the wall... I immediately sat up, in horror.
I watched as the sun broke through some clouds and let in the only light I had seen all day.
I had a desk just beside that window... and on it was Jamie's... b-bible...
I swallowed, and crawled across the mattress, looking as the light shone on it, and how I could see dust particles float around it from the light.
In a second, the thunder ripped through the town again, and rain suddenly broke forth in a heavier downpour.
I stared at that book... a book I was only a third through... and just looked at the only thing I knew that moment could comfort me.
The same words Jamie had read hundreds of times.
The same words... I had only read once...
Was it a sign from God... to ask him... to trust him that he would have an answer for me in his book?
I swallowed, and slowly got up.
I reached it, and placed my hand on the hardcover, closing my eyes in fear and pain.
I said in a beg, "Oh, please, God... help me..."
I slowly opened my eyes, they were sore from my tears... and I began to turn the pages... till my eyes set on that line...
Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God
"So that's it... is it..?" I asked. The room empty. Hoping he could hear my plea.
"That's it..?"
There was no answer... but I think I had gotten it.
And the funny thing was... it didn't surprise me... that I knew... I could lose everything.
If I said no to my father's offer to go to university.
If I said no to this world... for her.
I just wanted my Jamie back.
And I would give up anything to be with the one that gave everything.
"I guess... that's it, then..."