Death Doesn't Discriminate

Death doesn't discriminate

It doesn't care whether you're black or white

Healthy or sick

Rich or poor

Old or young

I learned this the sixteenth year I was on Earth

It didn't feel like I thought it would

My chest didn't collapse in on itself

My heart didn't burst

Instead my eyes lost life just like she had lost hers

And my body began to slow

The day she left was the first time I let other people see me cry

I never imagined pain could feel like it did that day

The day of the vigil we sung our high school alma mater solemnly while the sky cried with us to hide our tears from sympathetic faces

But the hardest day by far was when I had to wear a black dress and drive to a funeral home

Pictures of her filled the room like the wind in May

I began to cry against all my plans not to

I didn't cry for her or myself

I wasn't crying to get attention or to fit in

I was sad

Simply sad

I was sad in a world that tells you never to be

To look on the bright side of everything and that there's a reason for even the worst of events

But I was sad

And I was fine with that until my band director put his arm around me and I realized other people saw me

I thought about leaving but I couldn't do that to her

I sucked up my tears and walked up to the open coffin

Her coffin

An altar of death

It homed a little girl with red hair

The coffin didn't know the girl

It didn't know how much she loved band and her trumpet

It didn't know her favorite color was purple or how she laughed

That coffin didn't know her but it was now going to be where she would lie for eternity

I put the letter I had written her beside her puffed out face and hugged her mother

I couldn't tell her enough how sorry I was

I sat in the funeral home and cried for longer than I probably should have

All I wanted was to hear her yell at the drummers one last time

I wanted to sit in the floor of the home ec. room with her one last time

I wanted to have deep conversations in English with her one last time

Just one last time

A week later I watched a video of her and I realized I would never hear her voice again except for in videos

I had never experienced the impact death had

But the day after Thanksgiving I lost that innocence

It made me angry and depressed and fragile all at the same time

My eyes drooped as did my heart

I didn't want to go to school and see her locker decorated

I didn't want to see her seat empty in all of my classes

I didn't want to get a recipe for four instead of five

I didn't want to hear people tell me "It's okay to cry"

I didn't want to go on if she couldn't too

It had rained for a week and then all at once there was a rainbow

I don't know why but I know it was her

She was telling me something

She was telling us all something

It was the first time I didn't wear a fake smile in what felt like an eternity

I finally managed to tell her "See ya later." One last time