Saying Goodbye to Prince Charming.

[shoelace009.livejournal.com]

I've never understood why but it always rains at funerals. Apparently God saw a movie cliche and decided maybe the filmmakers had a point. I don't really know but if I was going to make an ass of myself, that'd be a great assumption to go with. Not that I mind being the ass. It generally works.

I felt like the ass that day. Everybody was crying, tearing up, bawling, breaking down, saying their goodbyes and I was fine. I'd given a rotten eulogy and thrown up a time or two but that was nerves about standing up in front of people. I'd always had trouble with that. I meant nothing in his eulogy. Not a word. The phrases and sentences maybe my mom and aunt meant but they never understood him anyway. Their minds, like those of so many humans, were crowded with love. His death wasn't about him no longer living or watching his child grow up. It was the whole "For whom the bell tolls" complex. They were lamenting at their own immortality as well as the loss of the future experiences THEY would have had with him and the love THEY would have felt. Love can be a very selfless thing but at the bottom of it, self is the root word, which is why I didn't feel anything but the rain poking at my exposed patches of pale skin in contrast to the black. I didn't feel anything.

I hadn't felt anything in days. Rationally you would think I would but nope, no cigar. No grief either. I'd spent all week tending to everybody else, trying to pretend I was in awe so nobody would expect I was a dirty traitor, a Benedict who had sold my feelings over for- well I didn't know what for yet but they would suspect me of a purpose. All week and I found myself standing on a hill in the rain. Cold enough for a March morning that it kept me aware but not enough that I was bitter for having to stand there or eager to leave. I was just in the moment. There but connected to nothing- certainly not the hole in the ground or the body going into it.

To this day I don't remember the color of his coffin or who carried the casket. What I do remember is the soft, muddy ground that bent under my feet and the only hill that seemed high enough to catch all that damn rain. My grandma's friend, a dear sweet lady- scratch that, I was never much of an idealist anyway- a rude, selfish idiot who chased the limelight of any situation like she was a damn mosquito on a summer night, put her hand on a shoulder that tensed before her fingers ever curved around it. I didn't look back. Only I knew who was sober enough and stupid enough to do that. The legal members of my family were, to put it plainly, treated with the proper doses of alcohol to keep them functional during the family apocalypse and the ones who were sober knew me well enough not to touch me to get an emotional reaction. I was never a gold mine for drama even when I should be.

Anyways, she put her hand on my shoulder in vain and said something trite and equally pointless like You have not cried all week. You should show your true feelings. What I wanted to say was alright and tell her where to stick that bony-ass hand but I didn't. I just watched my uncle's body lowered into the ground quietly and stared down at the green felt floor of the tent the preacher stood in and waited for the moment to absolve itself. As soon as my obligations both to my uncle and family were fulfilled, I climbed back into the car and let my muscles relax.

We drove down the hill and into the street and I didn't look back. I never have. It's not that I won't or can't. Quite simply, it's that I don't. I loved my uncle when he was alive. I love to hear stories about him and I would defend him or his addiction to the ground over anybody that saw themselves fit to judge. But I don't go visit his grave and I rarely cry. The whole thing for me was a nightmare and I numbed myself to get through it and now I look back on it like a dream. It can't hurt me anymore so why be afraid? I'm not afraid of death and my uncle is already gone. Nothing I can do. His body is in the hole on the hill, not his soul. Going up there and sitting on it, pouring my heart out, enduring the rain on some solitary night, will be more like speaking to the ground than him. He's not there. He never was there. Why do people think it is right to memorialize lively people with a stone? He was never dull as a rock so why use that to remind the world of his existence?

I know he lived. I know I at one point loved him and sometimes miss him. But I want to go to his favorite restraunt or hideout, not where they keep his body. They might as well have preserved it in a morgue and put him in a casket in the wall in a mausoleum. Just because it has trees, grass, flowers, and rolling hills doesn't mean it will bring him back or make him feel better. People do those things to make themselves feel better. When they say It's ok. He is in a better place, they want visual proof. I don't need that anymore. The fairytale is gone for me. Prince Charming doesn't live and he doesn't save you. He dies. People do that. They are human. You don't blame them and you don't turn them into gods. Prince Charming trades his sword in for a shroud and you forgive him. And then you either join him out of pining and depression or you save yourself.

Comments

[el-spiritous.livejournal.com]

Wanted to say this was very well written. You get your point across very well and with great clarity. It feels harsh, at the beginning, but the end explains the real, raw feelings of the piece. I don't know whether this is fiction or a true account or a mixture of both, but I agree with the sentiment. Thanks for writing.

[shoelace009.livejournal.com]

Thanks I appreciate that.

question and my opinions

[kombinant.livejournal.com]

Is this a one-shot or part of a larger story? Because it's wonderful as a one-shot, and if it's in a larger story, i can see it as a revelation of tiny bits of a characters inner self. The inner part that the reader doesn't find until near the end, when the character realizes himself or the reader just instantly has a eureka moment and sees the character in a whole new light. I loved this post in both ways it could have been used.

Re: question and my opinions

[shoelace009.livejournal.com]

Ummm it's kind of both actually. In my journal I have a few pieces related to this subject and this experience but I didn't write this with them in mind, just the attitude. Right now I am just trying to get writing in every day so most of what I post is writing for the sake of writing and hinges on whatever I'm thinking about the time.

I've thought that maybe they could be pieced together one day. I haven't made any definite decisions though.