Arianna Dixon, “Untitled”

UNTITLED

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

where more of our family was standing. When we got outside, we said something like, “I felt like I was about to cry just sitting there.” “Exactly . . .” Not in a sad way, even though that was the underlying feeling but with smiles and casually. We talked and teased as usual, none of us being good at just sitting in uncomfortable situations or confronting things head on. My cousins and I decided to go to a park nearby. We usually did this at family parties/gatherings, going outside and walking around. We acted as we usually did and passed a football around at the park as well as getting ice from an ice cart. We occasionally talked about what we were all really there for. Saying, “It’s crazy how we were literally just with him,” and I asked for more details on what happened the night he was hit since I couldn’t bring myself to ask my parents for more details. At least not when I had to hear my mom crying every day, even randomly at night. When we got back to the funeral parlor I talked to my dad outside. We walked together down the block. He asked me how I was doing and he told me more about what had happened. When we walked back to the funeral parlor lots of people were still outside. We were all wearing black pants and a white shirt, with my grandparents/close family wearing sports jerseys, since my uncle liked to wear them. I talked to people in my family that I hadn’t talked to or seen in months, maybe years. My godfather apologized to me, saying he hadn’t been a good godfather the way he should have, as when I was smaller I saw him a lot more. When my cousins and I went to the back, behind the casket and rows of chairs, there were black couches against the walls and some of our family members were sitting. I had started to get tired since my sleep schedule was ruined, and I stayed up through the night and slept in the morning. I had been drag-

ging myself awake all day and my lack of sleep was starting to get to me. Eventually when it took everything to force my eyelids open I put my head down on the couch but around my arms where nobody would see that i’m sleeping but might think that my head was down from crying. Sleep took me and I woke up later on and went outside where my cousins were. Our conversation went something like this, “Oh you were sleeping, I thought your head was down cuz you were crying.” “No, I was mad tired.” Later on, everyone came inside, where a pastor did a prayer which was kind of weird for me since I had not gone to church or actually prayed since I was little. By the end of the day, when the sky was dark but the area was lit with lights, our close family lingered. After going to the park and playing football with my cousins, even going to Dunkin’ Donuts and the store in the middle of everything, I thought about how life had kept moving around us. It was crazy to think about the way something tragic could happen to a family, but yet when you walked outside, the cars would still be moving, there would still be life happening around us anyways. I wondered about how much my little cousin might even remember of his dad who had died too soon. He was only six, and usually memories from when you’re that young often feel vague. We’re all young, the newer generation of our family are all teens or small, so I thought about how we all might remember it. In the moment everything always feels like it would feel the same way forever, but then years later when you look back everything always feels distant and far away. Would this be the same way, certain to feel immemorial no matter how close I hold it throughout the years?

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