T.K. 1986-2016

I drank in the photographs of his life, feeling like an imposter

thumbing through a book he made when he was 8, the construction paper feels rusty and expired like his life  

he had wanted to be a professional football player

someday

They had chosen a blue button up collared shirt that was tightened all the way to the top, every button was carefully attached, even snug around his wrists. that way no one would know. I wondering if they had told son the way they found him, hanging there.

 his wrists were crisscrossed like branches at his waste, casket hung with its mouth open, the white roses crowding the space. 

everyone is fumbling with their eyes, their words, their handshakes.

I watch G, he shakes his head over and over again, talking to himself, talking to T, reliving a few memories with his hollow body lying there. 

G looks empty himself, and every part of this trauma reminds him of a funeral he attended three years ago, except then it was his wife he stood over.

 T's sisters are grieving in two.

 One: in a dimlit room, sunglasses tight at her temples, the walls around her have no doors and she sits in silence next to a man whose skin is tight and thirsty. 

 Two: her cheeks are full and swollen, pink with kissing and embracing the flood of people, smiling, weeping, shaking hands, though her handshake has the life of a rag. 

   I don't know who we are telling, but,

  T learned how to kill himself from his mother. 

  I see my husband above the crowd, his eyes following T's son. He discerns the state of the boy, and hovers from room to room with him, wondering if he should, if he would have a chance to say something, what would he say? what could he say? 

T's ex-wife, full with child, a black dress closely pressed around her womb, her face is dry, but she is here to grieve as well in the quiet of this room, with one cell phone bleating into the silence.

  I exit the flooded space and find a quiet row that is soon cluttered with people muttering as they stare at his pictures, " oh what a cute kid he was, " " oh what nice nice pictures these are," 

   a girl behind me is weeping through the entire funeral, and the one in front rubs her own shoulders for comfort, then her neck, her body doubled over, filling the sleeves of her sweater with her tears. 

  Max fills the chapel with words he's  mulled over, to give just enough lifting, just enough encouragement with a space to grieve. Ive never seen him a suit, but there he is, desperate to make this a respected space, tight and straight and ironed carefully, the tie as tight as a rope.