Take time to stop and eat the blueberries!
I attended my first funeral today. A girl that I never really knew hung herself while in a rehab-house in Texas, and because of friends, I agreed to show up to pay my respects.
"Whitney was a wonderful girl and a loyal friend," the eulogizer says tearfully. There's sunlight coming through the window, and I stare at the rays while adjusting my shoes uncomfortably. This church was my home for nearly 10 years, the people my family for much longer, and coming back for a service of any sort is jarring. I'm almost certain the small talk afterwards will be worse: oatmeal-faced grandparents crying, teenagers alternating between awkward boredom and pent-up sorrow, strangers like me too hesitant to do anything but wait. This isn't about you, Maria, I admonish myself, shifting the weight on my now-numb ass and fidgeting with my dress pants. It's not about anyone, some other voice tells me. It's for them: the family. If they say loudly enough that she's at peace, they can believe it.
I knew Whitney Arseneau like a moth knows a lightbulb, always from afar. I was 13 when she started coming to church, I think, and she bedazzled everyone. She was smart, she was funny, she was athletic; everybody's all-American could be found somewhere behind that Listerine smile.
Sonshine 2003 was held in Wilmar, and since it was the Christian Rock festival of the Upper Midwest, I had to be there. All I really remember of the first night was campfires and hellish traffic, but the evening of the Newsboys concert promised to be fantastic. The four of us-Sarah Eliason, Whitney and her best friend Sophie, me-squished our way to the fourth row. As the first song stormed our ears, Whitney flashed a grin at me and declared to Sophie that she wanted to head for the barrier. The details of the next half-hour are fuzzy with years and silver linings, but less than two songs later all four of us were being helped over the wooden barricade and an ambulance was on its way for Whitney. Sarah and I huddled in our sleeping bags listening to Kelli (the responsible adult of the troupe) interrogating Sophie; we learned through the nylon tent walls that Whitney was anorexic-a half-apple this morning was all she'd eaten-and that she'd fainted while being smashed against the plywood by some burly pastor's son.
We headed home at dawn the next morning, and all I could think about was how I was going to miss my favorite bands on the main stage tonight.
"Well," I murmur as the slideshow of Whitney's baby pictures blinks into blackness on the projector screen, "I guess that's that." I look around at the lace hankies oozing out of pockets. People always seem to mention how funerals make them contemplate their own mortality, or turn to religion to bolster their slender odds in the afterlife lottery, or even think of having a child, a hundred children, so that when they finally kick the bucket they have someone to live in. I'm sadder about the other sad people, my friends, than about the dead girl that I didn't know. My dress shirt is itchy and I scratch my side lazily as I walk by myself out the church door into the too-bright sun. I suddenly feel like skipping, or jumping, or telling a knock-knock joke, but there's a grandmother watching me from inside the entrance hall. Forgetting myself, I wave cheerily and she breaks down in tears.
"Whitney was a wonderful girl and a loyal friend," the eulogizer says tearfully. There's sunlight coming through the window, and I stare at the rays while adjusting my shoes uncomfortably. This church was my home for nearly 10 years, the people my family for much longer, and coming back for a service of any sort is jarring. I'm almost certain the small talk afterwards will be worse: oatmeal-faced grandparents crying, teenagers alternating between awkward boredom and pent-up sorrow, strangers like me too hesitant to do anything but wait. This isn't about you, Maria, I admonish myself, shifting the weight on my now-numb ass and fidgeting with my dress pants. It's not about anyone, some other voice tells me. It's for them: the family. If they say loudly enough that she's at peace, they can believe it.
I knew Whitney Arseneau like a moth knows a lightbulb, always from afar. I was 13 when she started coming to church, I think, and she bedazzled everyone. She was smart, she was funny, she was athletic; everybody's all-American could be found somewhere behind that Listerine smile.
Sonshine 2003 was held in Wilmar, and since it was the Christian Rock festival of the Upper Midwest, I had to be there. All I really remember of the first night was campfires and hellish traffic, but the evening of the Newsboys concert promised to be fantastic. The four of us-Sarah Eliason, Whitney and her best friend Sophie, me-squished our way to the fourth row. As the first song stormed our ears, Whitney flashed a grin at me and declared to Sophie that she wanted to head for the barrier. The details of the next half-hour are fuzzy with years and silver linings, but less than two songs later all four of us were being helped over the wooden barricade and an ambulance was on its way for Whitney. Sarah and I huddled in our sleeping bags listening to Kelli (the responsible adult of the troupe) interrogating Sophie; we learned through the nylon tent walls that Whitney was anorexic-a half-apple this morning was all she'd eaten-and that she'd fainted while being smashed against the plywood by some burly pastor's son.
We headed home at dawn the next morning, and all I could think about was how I was going to miss my favorite bands on the main stage tonight.
"Well," I murmur as the slideshow of Whitney's baby pictures blinks into blackness on the projector screen, "I guess that's that." I look around at the lace hankies oozing out of pockets. People always seem to mention how funerals make them contemplate their own mortality, or turn to religion to bolster their slender odds in the afterlife lottery, or even think of having a child, a hundred children, so that when they finally kick the bucket they have someone to live in. I'm sadder about the other sad people, my friends, than about the dead girl that I didn't know. My dress shirt is itchy and I scratch my side lazily as I walk by myself out the church door into the too-bright sun. I suddenly feel like skipping, or jumping, or telling a knock-knock joke, but there's a grandmother watching me from inside the entrance hall. Forgetting myself, I wave cheerily and she breaks down in tears.