"Grief is a house where no one can protect you
where the younger sister will grow older than the older one
where the doors
no longer let you in or out."
- Jandy Nelson, The Sky is Everywhere
8
They called it a coffin or a casket, but really it was just a glorified fucking box. It got burned in its entirety or buried in the ground, taking with it a small piece of all the people left behind on land, grieving for what it contained.
The afternoon before the funeral, our family gathered at the funeral home where Rose was resting. We all spent some time with her in turn and finalized plans for the following day. If it was at all possible, she still looked beautiful. It wasn't really her; her life, vibrancy, and rosy cheeks weren't evident in the pallor that death had washed over her. You could faintly see where the mortician had touched up her head wound; other than that, you would never imagine the trauma she had experienced. She was such a natural beauty in life; it would have been an injustice to see her heavily made-up in death.
Alice came in when I was sitting with Rose, just as I was touching the cold finger that held the Russian wedding ring the three of us all wore. The three interlinked bands represented the three of us, rose gold, yellow gold, and white gold marking us as individuals who would always be connected. We had laughed about being totally cheesy with our symbolism, but that cheesiness was easily overcome by the fact that I loved having that small link with her. She would be buried with that ring and her wedding band in place. We'd taken off her engagement ring to keep for Ben.
"I'll never forget the Christmas she bought us those. It was so perfect; she tried to make out that it was no big deal, but underneath…" Alice said softly.
"She was always the most emotional of the three of us when it came to crying at movies, TV commercials, other people crying…yet she often managed to appear disaffected in family situations. It was transparent though. She would just get a little abrupt, and you could tell that she was trying to mask her feelings," I said with a slight smile.
"She'd certainly show hints of being a Scorpio at times." Alice gave a little giggle. "She'd be the light of the room one minute, and the next she'd be so damn feisty." Alice paused. "The boys thought we were such wrecks when we all blubbered with happiness when we put our rings on that day," my sister said, looking at the open coffin.
We sighed in unison and sat quietly. It was a different sigh to the ones I was used to – a sigh so laden with an untamable sadness.
"I'm not going to remember her this way. This isn't Rose. I'm going to remember the snappy bitch and the soppy sentimentalist and the fucking gorgeous angel who completed us."
Both of us cracked and the tears spilled over. I had no idea a person had the capacity for so much crying.
"I want to speak tomorrow. I think we should try," Alice whispered as we stood to leave.
"I do too. It wouldn't feel right just sitting there. It's just that it terrifies me," I replied.
We were incredibly anxious about whether or not to stand up in front of all those people. We knew that our chances of getting through without stuttering or blubbering were slight. Later that evening when we were back at Charlie's for a nightcap, it was Jasper who settled our worry.
"It's your day, girls. It's for you to celebrate her. If anyone was to chastise you for showing your emotions, then they shouldn't be there. I don't care if I can't understand a thing you're saying. If you can get up there and even come close to achieving what you want, then I take my hat off to you."
He was absolutely right, of course. Jasper was good like that.
I always thought brave was something that kids were told they had to be, and they wondered what it meant but knew it implied that when something sucked you just had to toughen up for a moment and get through to the other side. It was an adult's way of saying "Kiddo, you gotta do this, so I'll mask it by making you feel better about yourself if you do." I didn't think the term brave was used much after you turned about eighteen.
How wrong I was.
Brave wasn't a scraped knee in the playground, or getting a shot at the doctor, or having to perform in front of your gym class. Brave resurrected itself later on to show you what it really meant. Mid-twenties, early thirties, late fifties: bravery still required.
Brave was your sister in her yellow dress against the white satin inlay of a coffin. Brave was facing the insurmountable terror of her funeral. Brave was trying to work out how the hell you were going to live without seeing her every day.
That night I prayed to a God I wasn't sure I believed in, hoping that someone out there would help me to be brave.