U N T I T L E D Arianna
Dixon
His face looked matte, almost like his whole body was covered in makeup. It took us a while to come up there. We stressed walking up to the open casket. It was as if when we saw him it would be confirmation of reality, the shocking truth that he was really gone. The moment reminded me of a similar moment from when I was little. When my grandpa died, I was a little girl then. He had an open casket too, and I walked up to it and looked at him. I was confused because he didn’t look the way I’d remembered him to look. I had remembered him to be big and towering, always sitting in the same chair in his apartment when I came to see him. In the casket he looked skinny and small. When my uncle died, he looked pretty much the same but matte. When me and my cousin walked up to him, it was like I wanted to look away as quickly as possible but at the same time sit and stare, if only to soak up this last memory/image of him. It was hard when I just spent time with him weeks before then, and even the day before he had died. A family member who we saw run to the casket sobbing when she came in, had come up to us and apologized for what happened to him, and we told her it was okay. When we walked away and sat down in one of the rows of chairs, videos and pictures played near his casket. We sat near the back but not too far down since it wasn’t a huge place. You could hear sobs from the front where my grandparents, mom, aunt, and uncle sat, as well as other people comforting my grandma. As the videos played, people laughed, remembering how bright he was, always being the one making jokes and making everyone laugh. Me and my cousins watched and watched as people came in and looked at his casket. Some people shouted and cried when seeing him and even hurried to see him to make sure it was real. Eventually me and two of my cousins, all of us in the same age range, decided to go outside
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