visitation
Jun. 19th, 2012 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threeplusfireI went to the visitation at the funeral home. It rained today, hard and cold. Matt told me it was because we were so full of sorrow. On Mopac, there was no traffic at all which was was eerie and strange for 5:30pm on a week day. I only smoked one cigarette, on the way home.
There was an open casket, which shocked me. I figured whatever happened to him in the accident would have meant this was not possible. Someone did smash into him going 90 miles an hour and it killed him after all. You could see the bruising to his face, under the tricks of the undertakers. I wish in some ways that I hadn't looked. It was him and it wasn't at the same time, but it was enough like him that I felt a bit sick. I thought at the end that my knees might give out beneath me.
His wife hugged me and was kinder than I know what to say about. No one there from my past recognized me. In the slide show playing on loop, I recognized all the pictures from his teenage years. I was present when every one of them was taken, so many shots from those lost weekends we stayed at his father's apartment being goofy, ridiculous kids.
This is so goddamn hard. It hurts. I'm so full of rage and despair. The utter waste of it, the futility and randomness behind what happened to him have sent my brain into a spiral that's hard to back out of. In the car on the way home, I just screamed. I go between not wanting to speak or do anything to feeling so restless and jagged that I feel like I'm going to explode if I don't move.
I can tell my brain is treading the edge of a not rational place. I'm thinking about taking something so I can sleep because I'm afraid of being up all night losing it in the dark. The actual funeral is tomorrow. I don't want to go, in some ways. But I have to go. I remember when our friend killed himself back in high school, James and I sitting in the back row at the service. It was outdoors and it was sunny and hot and we were both wearing black tshirts. I never thought I would be sitting at his services like this.
Oh James. I'm so fucking sad and angry and its not fucking fair that you're dead. You should be here.
I found this LJ entry I wrote about James eleven years ago.
There was an open casket, which shocked me. I figured whatever happened to him in the accident would have meant this was not possible. Someone did smash into him going 90 miles an hour and it killed him after all. You could see the bruising to his face, under the tricks of the undertakers. I wish in some ways that I hadn't looked. It was him and it wasn't at the same time, but it was enough like him that I felt a bit sick. I thought at the end that my knees might give out beneath me.
His wife hugged me and was kinder than I know what to say about. No one there from my past recognized me. In the slide show playing on loop, I recognized all the pictures from his teenage years. I was present when every one of them was taken, so many shots from those lost weekends we stayed at his father's apartment being goofy, ridiculous kids.
This is so goddamn hard. It hurts. I'm so full of rage and despair. The utter waste of it, the futility and randomness behind what happened to him have sent my brain into a spiral that's hard to back out of. In the car on the way home, I just screamed. I go between not wanting to speak or do anything to feeling so restless and jagged that I feel like I'm going to explode if I don't move.
I can tell my brain is treading the edge of a not rational place. I'm thinking about taking something so I can sleep because I'm afraid of being up all night losing it in the dark. The actual funeral is tomorrow. I don't want to go, in some ways. But I have to go. I remember when our friend killed himself back in high school, James and I sitting in the back row at the service. It was outdoors and it was sunny and hot and we were both wearing black tshirts. I never thought I would be sitting at his services like this.
Oh James. I'm so fucking sad and angry and its not fucking fair that you're dead. You should be here.
I found this LJ entry I wrote about James eleven years ago.
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no subject
Date: 2012-06-20 06:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-20 03:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-20 03:17 pm (UTC)Yeah, taking a sleep med is probably a very good idea. *squash*
I'm here if you need/want anything. Seriously. I'll have internet at the retreat so I'm around.
no subject
Date: 2012-06-20 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-20 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-20 09:38 pm (UTC)Also, I sympathize entirely with your thoughts on open-casket visitations. I honestly don't know which of the two open-casket visitations I've attended was worse: my grandfather's, where the cancer and the mortuary had rendered him unrecognizable, or my grandmother's, where she looked so natural and lifelike that I expected her to wake up and climb out the entire time. Some people find that comforting, I'm sure, but I think ambivalence and a little revulsion are completely reasonable.