The sun never comes out on days like this.
The clouds linger, leaving a dull, overcast grey that masks
what is usually a postcard-perfect day. There were no colors, even in a place
where summer never ends. The windswept burial site stood atop of the highest
point of the cemetery. This little hillside probably has the best view of the
county. It faces north, overlooking where the city sits. Skyscrapers dot the
horizon. The San Diego
Bay
Hundreds—clad in white at the family’s request—came. It
shouldn’t have been a surprise. The chapel for the funeral service couldn’t
hold the over 350 people that came. People stood on the sides next to the pews.
People huddled in the back. They spilled into the hallways and into the little
lobby in the front. Everyone else stood outside, hoping to catch a little bit
of the service from the speakers that were turned to 11.
The funeral director told me it was the largest crowd he had
seen in a long time. I overheard the pastor speaking to someone 45 minutes
before the ceremony: “It’s already starting to fill up…it’s because he was so
young.”
I heard and saw the same thing two weeks earlier at the
hospital. We took every seat in the waiting room. We stood in hallways until
the hospital staff told us we couldn’t. And then we returned when they weren’t
looking. The family was given their own private room and that too was filled at
every hour of everyday we were at the hospital. A nurse told me she had never
seen so many people come visit one person. “It’s truly uplifting, encouraging
and inspiring,” she said to me in a hallway, “that so many people came. He must
have been such a special person.”
The weekend’s services and Sunday’s funeral reinforced that.
Stories were told. Memories were relived. Laughter was the cure for our grief
the last three days.
Sunday was probably the easiest day of the last fortnight.
Yes, every moment of silence was broken by a sniffle or a sigh. The loudest
cries came on this day and came when his cousin fought through tears to recite
a poem and when the final roses were placed on the casket. But this was not the
hardest day.
The hardest day will come in the infinite tomorrows ahead. We’ll
want to shoot him a text or check his latest Instagram post. And when he
doesn’t respond, we’ll pretend that we don’t remember. We’ll think to ourselves
that he hasn’t responded or called or posted because he was busy doing what he
does—creating, loving, traveling, vibing and repeating that whole process.
He’ll get back to me one day, we’ll think, when he finds the time or if he’s
passing through. No, the hardest day will come from some distant tomorrow. The
hardest day will come when the ink on our skin becomes an afterthought, when the
memories fade and the photos are put away.
