Last Look

CW: death, suicidal ideation, cancer, vomit.

I hate funerals.

I haven’t been to many, but the ones I have been to, well, they didn’t exactly put the fun in funeral. But this one I couldn’t miss. I don’t want anyone to recognize me, so I’m wearing a black baseball cap and tinted glasses, which I understand isn’t respectful dress code for a funeral, but I’m pretty sure the dead guy won’t mind. I wait until the very last second before the service starts to sneak in and discreetly find a spot at the back of the room.

Whoever organized the funeral could have chosen a much better photo. The large placard on an easel in front of the casket, with his name, date of birth, and date of death, features a blown-up, pixelated, unflattering photo of him with a double chin, receded hairline, and adult acne. He was only forty-seven. Life is fucking short.

The slideshow playing behind the funeral director shows better snapshots of his life. Some memories I recognize, some are unfamiliar. A baby photo with a Winnie the Pooh pacifier in his mouth. Halloween costumes throughout the years: Buzz Lightyear, Pikachu, Bubbles from The Trailer Park Boys. High school graduation, his smile the brightest among all his friends tossing their caps in the air. Birthday parties. His first car, followed by pictures of the same car totalled after an accident at nineteen that left him with permanent shoulder damage. Girlfriends that I don’t recognize. College parties and family vacations with his wife, son, and daughter, whom I’ve just learned he left behind.

Funerals are weird. It’s one of the few places where it’s one hundred per cent acceptable to cry, and yet, it’s still embarrassing to do so. On the other hand, if you’re not crying, people look at you as if you’re not grieving enough. This is why I hate funerals. Why don’t we celebrate people’s lives and tell them how much we love them while they’re around to hear it?

“If he were here right now, still with us,” a speech starts from someone I don’t know, “He would be touched.”

I doubt that. He would probably think this is a performative wank fest for everyone else’s benefit and a colossal waste of money.

“When the cancer started spreading,” she continues, and I don’t listen to the rest.

Cancer. What a way to go. My mom died of cancer, and it was one of the worst experiences of our lives.

An unexpected tear dribbles down my face.

“It’s tough, I know,” says an older lady, who smells like mothballs and whose face is familiar, yet I can’t place it. “How did you know Brian?”

“It’s complicated,” I start. “He might not recognize me if he were here today. Haven’t seen him in years.”

“Well, grief has a way of bringing folks together, now doesn’t it? I think he’d be happy to have you here—your name was?”

“BJ,” I tell her.

“Nice to meet you, BJ. I’m Alexandra. I was his singing teacher some twenty-odd years ago. What I’d give to hear him sing O Danny Boy one last time.” She dabs her eyes, and I avert my gaze back to the podium, where his wife now stands with their young children flanking her. His daughter looks no older than ten, and his son looks to be twelve or thirteen. That means he must have had them in his mid-thirties. I’ve just entered my thirties, and I couldn’t possibly imagine being a father at this phase in my life. I don’t even have a girlfriend, nor do I want kids.

“He always wanted kids,” she says, “So when we got married, we got to it straight away. Brilyssa and Atwood,” horrible names, “are the best gift he could have ever given me, and I know he will continue to live on through them.”

Brian really bagged a dime—good for him. She looks to be in her forties herself. She’s tall, probably six feet—she must have towered over him. Her teeth are whiter than the paper shaking in her hands, and her thick blonde curls bounce against her perky breasts. Here I am ogling the widow while she cries for her late husband. I’m not meant for funerals. But again, I’m sure the dead guy won’t mind. I wonder if his spirit is somewhere here watching over everyone, surveying who did or didn’t show up, seeing who’s crying more than others, who is watching the football game on their phone behind the pew.

His dad, Billy, is here, which is a bit of a surprise. I mean, I’m not sure what their relationship has been like in the last decade or so, but last I knew, they weren’t speaking. Outliving your child must shake off any grudges that were previously held. I don’t speak to my father, and I’ve often wondered what I’m going to do when he passes. I never considered that he could outlive me.

“Brian and I didn’t have the best relationship,” he’s speaking now, “But he was my son. I don’t have much to say, but I have a lot to regret. Brian taught me a lot, in life and in death. I wish he knew how grateful I am for that, because I never told him in life. His default setting was kindness, where mine was callousness. Where he was an optimist, I was pessimistic. If someone asked a favour, he’d say what, where, when? I’d just say, why? If I could time travel back forty-seven years and start over, I would. No parent should have to attend their children’s funeral. And no funeral should be the place you see your child for the first time in more than a decade. I encourage anyone here who has a fractured relationship with their kid to act now. Even if they don’t want to talk to you, you can say what I can’t—that you tried.”

Wet sniffles, sharp inhalations, blowing noses, and occasional weeping make up the worst ASMR imaginable. But I can’t help to join them in shedding a few tears at that speech, myself.

“Tissue?” Alexandra offers. I accept one, thank her, and dab my dripping cheeks.

After a much too long, boring, and religiously coated speech from the funeral director that I know Brian would have hated, everyone begins filing out for the reception. Fantastic, let’s eat stale, dry mini sandwiches, graze a Wal-Mart veggie tray and talk about the dead guy. Seriously, who planned this shit? That’s the last room I want to be in, so I veer off to the bathroom. Stopping in front of the mirror, I rest my sweating palms on the white porcelain sink.

Cancer. That shit freaks me out. Melanoma, one speech said. They didn’t catch it early enough. When my mom was alive, she would constantly inspect all the marks on my body for abnormalities. I have a lot of moles. Her brother had cancer—I was too young to remember the type now, but he got ahead of it in the early stages. It runs in the family, she said daily. She was paranoid, and she had right to be. She wasn’t as lucky as my uncle. Suddenly I miss her paranoia, and I lift my black sweater, inspecting for any weird-looking spots. I press my face to the mirror, searching for signs of disease, and start sobbing.

“I came in here to cry, too,” a voice says from a stall as the toilet flushes. Billy.

Before he comes out of the stall, I bolt out the swinging door to the lobby, where I collide with a behemoth of a man, sending us both crashing to the floor.

“Sorry, man!” he says.

My glasses fall off my face. I frantically grab for them and throw them back on before saying, “You’re good.”

“Hey, do I know you?”

“Nope,” I avoid his furrowed brow.

“You look so familiar!”

“I’m his cousin. The family genes are strong.” I take a few steps backward before turning for the glass door to the parking lot.

“No kidding!” he shouts to my back.

I hadn’t realized how much I needed fresh air. It hits like IV vitamin therapy after a night of too much drinking. Sitting on a painted-yellow parking block, my head between my knees, I release the energy of the panic attack I didn’t know I was having. Tears darken the concrete beneath me in sporadic black dots.

“BJ,” someone says softly, which brings my head up like a deer who just heard a twig snap a hundred meters away. Alexandra again. “They’re allowing people to see the body before they bury him. Would you like a last look?”

I vomit. Projectile vomit. Purging all the way to the end of this parking space. All over my black Converse shoes. I can’t breathe, my throat seizes and stings with acid as it just keeps coming out.

“I know this is a lot to handle,” Alexandra says. “Let me go get you something to clean yourself up. Stay right there, hon.”

This was a mistake. She’s right, I can’t handle this. I don’t know why I thought I could. I want to leave. But I can’t.

I pull off my puke-covered shoes, peel off my socks and use them to wipe the remaining vomit off my mouth and chin.

Will I regret not looking at the body? Everyone says that people who view the open casket will forever remember the deceased as a lifeless, pale, bruised corpse, rather than who they were when they had a soul in them. Some deny that experience, but I can guarantee that it would be unforgettable for me.

Fuck it. I’m doing it.

I walk my bare feet back into the funeral home, my head down, straight through a group of wailing women, the scent of barf in my wake. So much for not pulling attention. Then I see it. The casket. They are just about to close the lid and call in the pallbearers to take him to his eternal resting place.

“Wait!” I call to them. “I’m sorry. Would you mind if I had a moment?”

“Not a problem, sir.”

He leaves it open. I can’t see the body from where I’m standing. I take two steps forward. I see his nose.

Deep breath.

I take another step. His eyebrows.

Two steps. His hair.

Step. Eyelids. Sunken cheekbones.

I’m standing right over him now, taking in his frailness. Close enough that I can see the deep wrinkles aging him well beyond his years. Dark spots and empty veins cover his pale hands.

I cover my mouth with my hand to restrain a yelping cry, but I can’t stop what comes out.

Vomit.

More vomit.

So much more vomit.

All over Brian. All over myself. All over the ugly fucking tuxedo someone agonized over choosing for him. In the space between his shoulders and the padding of the casket. All over his face. In what he had left for hair.

Absolute fucking panic. I slam the casket shut, eternally trapping him swimming in vomit. My naked feet beeline out the emergency exit, setting off the alarm across the entire building, which then pulls everyone out into the parking lot where I left my shoes and Alexandra is probably looking for me.

I run around the back of the building into the grass, where I see the rectangular hole dug six feet into the ground. I fall to my knees, heaving, tears raining down to my nose, mixing with snot and half-digested food chunks.

“STOP!” I shout, “I want this to stop!” But it can’t stop.

I throw myself into the hole and scream into the dirt, which now adds to the collage of mess on my face and muddies up my sweating hands and feet. Six feet is deep. I might have twisted my ankle, but I dig my fingers and toes into the dirt walls, even though I wouldn’t mind them closing in on me right now, and climb out.

More running. Limping. Away from this. Away from him.

A busy highway stands in front of me. Small cars, SUVs, city buses, and garbage trucks zip by.

I could end this right now.

What would happen if I ended this right now?

Could I stop it? Could I stop all of it?

My bare feet are on hot cement, and the sound of heavy traffic is deafening.

Two slow steps. Louder. Heart racing, disoriented. I sprint. A honk.

White.

“Brian?”

“Brian!”

“Brian, are you okay?”

My eyes flash open and I catch my breath as if I had just broken the water’s surface after nearly drowning.

People in all white look down on me.

“Am I dead?”

“No!” they laugh, as if they’ve heard that for the tenth time today. “But did you enjoy your first experience time travelling?”