The Day I Died - Prologue. Canto I: The End

It’s that dream again. Everyone in black, a casket at the end of the aisle. The song that I had always wanted played at my funeral. The end… The songwriter’s dead…The blade fell upon him… Taking him to the White Lands of Empathica… Of Innocence... My friends sitting on the left, in the first row, my family on the right, mirroring my friends. Only this time, there is one less at my funeral. My mother. She knew of the choices I’ve made in my life, wasn’t proud of them, wasn’t one-hundred-percent accepting of them, but loved me nonetheless. She was the strongest woman I knew. Who was raised by another strong woman who was still going on strong at the age of 80. My mother was the light in my darkened hallway on a storming night. But she wasn’t here because she couldn’t bury her son. Because she believed that I was still there, somewhere.

Get away, run away, fly away. Lead me astray, to dreamer’s hideaway… As each member of the funeral comes up to the casket to say their last goodbye, I hear some of my friends say that they’ll really miss me. That they tried to save me, that it was their entire fault that I’ve died. I watch my family get up, tear streaked faces, mascara running down my aunts faces, come up to the casket and place black roses on the top. Asking God why I had to die, why He decided it was time for me to die. My grandmother walking up to the casket to place a bundle of red, red roses, saying “You will be missed by us all. Never forget how much we love you. Say hello to the rest of the family up there.” My dad coming up to the casket, without a tear streaked face, but tears welling up inside of his eyes. Screaming that he would’ve traded places with me, just so that I could live to see another day. So that I could fulfill my life instead of lie there at the tender age of 25.

2^nd robber to the right of Christ! Cut in half – infanticide! The world will rejoice today, as the crows feast on the rotting poet! And those who I thought would never show their face at my funeral. The ones who had betrayed me during my delicate years of struggling with my sexuality. Those who I called friends, later acquaintances, and then later to random strangers. Those who were only out for themselves. They were actually crying. Actually feeling sorry for my family, grieving for my death and showing extreme care for someone they cared so little about.

One of them walked up to where I lay, she said “It was too soon. I wish I had gotten the chance to apologize to you properly so we didn’t have to go the rest of our lives not knowing each other. I will miss you, big brother. This world feels colder and darker without your light here. I love you.”

It was at this point, where the song had reached the bittersweet ending and my mother walked in. A bouquet of black roses, tears streaming down her eyes, screaming that she’d lost the only child she would ever get to call her own. Be still, my son. You’re home. Oh when did you become so cold? The blade will keep on descending… All you need is to feel my love… Search for a beauty… Find your shore… As she walked up the aisle, her tear stricken face reached a point where I could only make out that she saw me there. A spirit waiting for his mother to tell him her last words. As she approached the coffin, her tears increased tenfold, her words broken and full of pain and regret. She said, as she placed the black roses on the top of the coffin, “I will forever miss you. You were my light on the darkest day, my strength when I could barely stand. I loved you even though we didn’t agree on how your life should have turned out. My love was, is, pure and strong. And I will still miss you, even though you are gone from this world. Your death was tragic, and had nothing to do with what I feared it might. When the hospital called that dreadful night I thought that you were dying from disease. But when we got there, you were dying from a hate crime. You were the victim of someone’s bigotry. And I will fight, from this day forward, for all of the sons who were abandoned. All of the daughters ridiculed. All they need is love. And I have so much to spare, so much to give away.” And as she turned to walk away, she was surprised by the rest of the family and my friends. They were right there, motioning for her to let some of the burden of my death rub off on them. They hugged and hugged for a while each. Only after did each embrace end, did they shoot her a look that said “You aren’t the only one that will miss him. We all will. He brought us to levels we never thought we could achieve. He brought us all up while staying as low as possible.”

It was at this point when my boyfriend stood in front of her, tears streaming down his face. He looked up at her and her at him. She embraced him and told him in a whispered tone, “We finally have something more in common. I wish it weren’t this, but we have come to know each other as family. You were the love of my son’s life. He often spoke of you in his letters to me. I want to thank you for loving him, unconditionally, through his toughest days. God knows I didn’t make some of them better. But we all make mistakes.”

He, too, embraced her and told her in a louder tone, “I did, I truly did. I loved him with all of my heart, and now that he’s gone, I want to love you guys as family as well. We already practically are. Even if we never did get along, even if we fight in the future, it would have meant the world to him that we finally get along and act like a proper family. Things will be rough at first, adjusting to seeing each other every day. But I know we can do it, if not for ourselves, but for him. It’s what he would have wanted.”

She looked up at him, tears forming in her eyes again and she clung to him. She clung to him as if he were her own son in a different body. She knew that that was something he’d say, that he’d selflessly give himself up to make something work. But she knew that he wasn’t her son. She knew that they were separated by a spirit world. A world that she couldn’t even fathom to understand like she tried so desperately to do, so she clung to him, held on tight and bawled her eyes out because her only son was dead. And now she’s got another one that wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

The end of the funeral plays out like any other funeral; six men carry the casket out of the church, down to the hearse, and travel to the graveyard where the hole for him was dug the night before, and the lowering mechanism placed to easily and effortlessly lower the young man’s carcass in a box down into the hole that would remain his home until the end of the world. At the lowering, everyone cries that much more. More roses are placed on the man’s coffin as he’s lowered, words are said further as everyone says goodbye to the one person in their life that brought more meaning to it.

“Without light, darkness reigns supreme. Without darkness, fear cannot be established. A healthy fear is nothing to be afraid of, ashamed of nor thought of as weakness. Fear strengthens us, gives us a resolve to better ourselves for the future. What we cannot change, we instead hope it will. What we cannot face alone, another will stand beside you to strengthen you. Strength is not measured by physical appearance, but by courage and love. The harder and longer the love and courage, the stronger we become. For without love, we are but shells. Doomed to walk this earth alone and empty. Never forget that love is not bound by race, by orientation, by gender, by religion. Love comes unconditionally. Courage comes from that love. Not being afraid to love another as you love yourself shows that not only are you prepared for the world, but that you are ready to accept that the future is unavoidable."

My name is Tomas Cole, and this is the story of how I died.