Eulogy

“ It’s kind of funny, well wait. Not funny because that might actually be the worst word you can use in the presence of people in mourning. But I guess I meant… ironic, in the sense that I always used to get so upset when I would see people making someone else’s death about them. You know what I’m saying, like how sad they are or how hard it is for them. I was always under the impression that if something happens that shakes your entire world to its core you wouldn’t have to broadcast your emotions. That either people would be too nervous, or that they would just see and understand that it isn’t something that “ I’m sorry for your loss” or especially “ I know how you feel” could begin to touch what it was that had died inside them when they lost that person. But then I was asked to do this, amongst all of her loved ones, and people whose entire fabric of reality tore at the seams when they realized she was no longer here. I was mad at first, at myself, at who asked me, at a lot of things honestly but I think it was because how I just said I’d always felt about others making the loss of a life about them. After I had gotten over myself, I took some time to think about what I would actually say. It’s easy to scribble down little anecdotes when there is no immediate audience. Nobody that you’re trying to reach, or comfort. And I actually had something written out and I thought that it would be good enough, or at least get the job done. It was about how I had really first interacted with her because she had almost run me over. And maybe it would have gotten a few laughs, but as I stand up here in front of you. It just seems, for lack of a better word. Cheap. Which is why I couldn’t understand why I was chosen because I didn’t have a plethora of stories and memories that I could just spew from the mouth like so many of you all. So again I wondered: why me? Whenever I have trouble thinking I tend to listen to music and I just let the playlist go because I know that whatever is meant to reach me will. And as luck, or maybe some other higher power would have it, something did. It was actually a Taylor Swift song, and It wasn’t really something that was super important in the song, but she talked about how she didn’t understand why she felt like she had missed you all this time. The person the song was about I’d imagine, but it stuck with me. It didn’t make sense, you know? To miss someone that you’d never known, but for some reason I couldn’t get it out of my head. It wasn’t until right now that It finally clicked. As I look at all of you, some with tears in your eyes, some fighting them back. And I think about why I don’t feel that inherently, why it would almost feel forced. But the reason is because I missed everything. What made her laugh, what made her cry, where she was when she realized that everything she’d wished for was coming true. Or more importantly where she was when it all came crashing down. You know, I didn’t understand Why there was some part of me that knew you wanted to be loved or cared about but it’s because it wasn’t in the way she acted all the time. It was just the remnants of who she had been and continued to be, just subtly. I see all of you people and I feel terrible for being jealous. Jealous of all of you because the way you knew her is emanating from the inside out. You don’t even have to try because the impact she made on you is forever lasting, and I only got a taste of it. But I think that might be why I was the right person to speak. Not because I wanted to make it about me, and certainly not because I knew her the best. But, because out of everybody I was someone who could appreciate where I was in this situation. I’m not Suffocated by grief, so through it all I still see everything that she was becoming because to me it was all new. It breaks my heart that I won’t get to see everything she was going to become, but I also understand that I’m better for knowing her, the same as all of you are. I hope that nothing I said brought you any more pain because I know it’s insurmountable. I guess I’m hoping that it brought you some comfort because the pain you feel from the loss Is only because of how amazingly she lived, and still lives in all of you.