When You're Gone

THE FOLLOWING is just a fragment. I plan on finishing it at a later point, but am not able to right now. The plan is to write about this event from several points of view.

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Who’s going to miss you when you’re gone? At my brother’s funeral there were so many people in the church, and the church was a big one, that they opened an overflow room. And even though I had a hard time seeing individual faces, the blurry blob of all of them together, there for my brother, was a sliver of good.

Two weeks before the funeral, at the surprise 40^th birthday he’d thrown for my sister-in-law, he’d half-joked about how there’d never be that many people who’d come for a party for him. He was wrong. But it was too late for him to see that.

What happens when someone disappears suddenly from your life? I’ll tell you what. Your mother’s health crashes as her heart starts to clog and slow on her way back from that once-in-a-lifetime trip to Australia. You see your step-father cry for the first time. You don’t know what to say to your two nieces, only 13 and 16, when they look at you. And you have no idea when you should tell your two year old daughter that her uncle is dead. You know that you have to one day. You try but don’t understand how your sister-in-law can suddenly cut you and your mother and your step-father and your husband and your daughter out of her life, bringing her two daughters with. You also have no idea how to explain that one to your two year old either.

I’d say “when someone disappears unexpectedly,” but, looking back on it, there were signs. They stand out now, glowing as they do in my mind.

I last saw him the Friday before the Tuesday. His daughters, my nieces, are (were? I don’t know anymore) into competitive skipping. It’s not a sport I knew much about before they started doing it but it’s a very impressive sport to watch. We went down, my husband, daughter and I to watch them. Karl (my brother) was in the stands. Carmelle (my sister-in-law) was helping with the competition down on the floor. We sat with Karl. He seemed tired. Kaya (my daughter) often cried around Karl. Nothing personal. She cried around any man with facial hair. But that Saturday she was playful with him and they looked happy as he carried her down to the floor to say hi to Carmelle and to get a better look at the girls as they were skipping.

After the girls had done their routines, we left. Kaya had to go for a nap. And that was it. On the Tuesday I was at a viewing of a documentary at the library. Ian (my husband) was at home with Kaya who was in bed. After the movie there was a reception. A woman asking my name. And the woman had a look that frightened me. She said there was a call. Urgent. “Kaya” was what I thought. On the phone it was Ian. “It’s Karl. He died today.” After that I’m not sure. A friend drove me home. Ian met me outside.

Who’s going to miss you when you’re gone? At my brother-in-law’s funeral there were so many people in the church, and the church was a big one, that they opened an overflow room. And even though I had a hard time seeing individual faces, the blurry blob of all of them together, there for my brother-in-law, was a sliver of good.