When I stepped over the threshold of that final doorway and reached for the small square paper that held her face, I began to shake. In front of me was one of the scariest things I had ever seen in my life. It was that girl from my school, the one who used to be my friend, laid down upon the softest of cushions and surrounded by only the most beautiful flowers. And at that point I began to have blurry vision from the amount of water filling my eyes to the brim, spilling over the top setting two distinct racetracks down my cheeks.
She looked as though she was sleeping, but I knew better. I knew that below those softly closed eyelids were sweet chocolate brown eyes that once held a twinkle. A twinkle that once lit up her wide bright smile which was now encased by her lightly stained pink lips. Her supple brunette locks were curled around her face almost as though it was a false halo complimenting her rosebud pink scarf. Oh that scarf, that scarf is what caused me to sob. It hid what I knew was there and soon enough the end of that scarf met the edge of the half closed bed she lay in. Not a bed though, a coffin.
I wheezed as the disease of grief flared full force and I almost wanted to reach for the girl to shake her awake for I knew this would cure what I ailed from. But she couldn’t, and never would open those lovely almond eyes again. I tried to pray at that time, but all I could think was please, please wake up, oh let someone help you. That massive line behind me grew impatient so I turned from her angelic form to her parents. Her father gazed upon me with that broken look and I flung my arms around him, thinking he was some form of her, and cried.
You Can't Run From Disease
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I bawled as I moved on to the mother of my friend. I knew the tracks of tears on my face were now stained black from my make-up. As I continued to weep I went down that line until I could only reach the fifth family member. Only five people I managed to reach before I took my crying self and my tightly tied purple shoes and ran. As far as I could with my father calling behind me. I collapsed outside that grand white mansion feeling the disease squeeze my heart, prolonging the pauses between beats so I could hear it like a drum in my ears to match the symphony of my moans. There I sat for ages thinking over those same suicides upon the news and rumors that I paid little attention to with purposeful ignorance. But her name, the familiarity, brought my world to an all-time stop until all I felt was grief.
That girl, the one who shot the basketball in the wrong basket, who was able to enchant most boys in my school, the one who had a sweet personality but ferocity to protect what was important to her. Happiness seemed to radiate from her being and now, now she would no longer gaze upon the world with her smooth russet eyes and long black lashes. And with a single thought all that grief came to a sudden halt.
She was not here to see the world. But I was, her best friends were, her family was, as were all the people she touched with her enthusiastic way of life. As I stood in my lilac shoes I made but one declaration as I became another holder of grief, it was not concurred, but simply pacified for a time.
We will all see the world for you, live for you, remember you, our sweet Madison.