I didn\u2019t reply to Jacob\u2019s last text message to me, but I did show up to his funeral. I\u2019d spent the\u00a0entire morning deciding what to wear. A lot of the clothes that I once wore don\u2019t quite fit me the\u00a0way they used to in high school.<\/p>\n
Is wearing black to a funeral mandatory? If funerals are truly meant to be a celebration of life,\u00a0why can\u2019t people wear something bright? I thought about wearing my orange polo, but I was\u00a0worried I\u2019d stand out too much. Maybe the key is to wear something somewhere in-between. So\u00a0I went with gray.<\/p>\n
A funeral is just a little bit different from a high school reunion. At high school reunions, you get\u00a0to see who potentially has their life together and who doesn\u2019t. At funerals, you get to see who\u00a0shows up at all. I don\u2019t see anyone from high school here.<\/p>\n
I blend in at the burial ceremony. A putrid stench wafts off of the marshy pond in the\u00a0background of the cemetery. People pretend not to notice. But the more that people pretend not\u00a0to notice something, the more you notice them pretending not to notice something. This is when I\u00a0realize that sunglasses weren\u2019t invented to keep the sun out of your eyes. They were invented to\u00a0wear at funerals. A split second of eye contact can send you into a dizzying spiral.\u00a0I watch Jacob\u2019s mother go through three entire boxes of tissues. Jacob\u2019s stepfather, who used to\u00a0step all over him, half-heartedly attempts to comfort her. He rolls his eyes. I can\u2019t help but grind\u00a0my teeth.<\/p>\n
Jacob was a bit strange. And even a little irksome sometimes. But maybe Jacob just wanted some\u00a0company. Maybe he wanted an ever-so brief escape from his home. I regret the time he knocked\u00a0on my door and I told my mom to tell him I wasn\u2019t home. I regret the time I didn\u2019t invite him to\u00a0my birthday get-together. It\u2019s amazing how get-togethers can actually push people apart. I really\u00a0wish I would have answered that last text message, even if it was about a movie I had no\u00a0intention of ever seeing.<\/p>\n
My grinding teeth come to a halt, like a train stopping when the conductor sees a problem on the\u00a0tracks. I duck out of the burial and head to my rusted Suburu. I break down inside of the car that\u00a0has its own breakdowns.<\/p>\n
Someday, our bones, our brains, and our hearts won\u2019t feel a thing. But right now I need to go\u00a0home and change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zach Murphy I didn\u2019t reply to Jacob\u2019s last text message to me, but I did show up to his funeral. I\u2019d spent the\u00a0entire morning deciding what to wear. A lot of the clothes that I once wore don\u2019t quite fit me the\u00a0way they used to in high school. Is wearing black to a funeral mandatory? Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"parent":23,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-full-width.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-504","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":856,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/504\/revisions\/856"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/18-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}