Convincing You I'm Me

Chapter 4: Eulogy

I take to the stand in the church, my hands trembling as I take out the eulogy from my pocket. I look to the picture frame of her, of her smile, of her beauty, it still shines out of her, even now.

I stare down at the piece of paper in my hand aimlessly, scrolling my eyes over every word and becoming too choked to start. I glance up at the many faces and waiting eyes that are turning red as they cry together. Seeing their distress, their sorrow, forces me to surrender the piece of paper back into my pocket and I take a deep breath. I don't need a piece of paper to do this, I don't need to read from anything, I just need her memory to guide me. 

"Lily was. . . the love of my life," I say, blinking through the woozy tears. "She was annoying at the best of times and always had to have her own way, and I was too scared of her to say otherwise." The room trembles out a few quaky laughs. "But she was. . . she was. . ." I can't even finish the end of that, I don't even know what I'm saying. I take a deep breath and I begin again. "I am twenty-eight-years old, and I feel like I've lived a hundred lifetimes, because I had her. It was a never a boring moment with Lily, from the first time I met her to the. . . last time I saw her b-breathe, she was a ball of weird and catastrophic light. This world needed someone like her. . ." I trail off with my thoughts, my voice becomes barely a whisper. "This world still needs someone like her. I'm lucky because I got to spend twelve years of my life loving her and being loved back. Some people spend their whole lives searching for that. I guess she was just. . . she was a once in a lifetime, she was. . ."

I stop myself, glaring down at her wooden coffin with a lump in my throat. "She was e-extraordinary."

I break down, unable to contain it. I place a hand on her coffin, almost collapsing onto it, and my father has to direct me away back to the seats. I sit back down, rubbing my face with my hands as the vicar comes back onto the stage and introduces a song.

I hold my breath as our song comes on. The song we danced to at our engagement party, the song we danced to at our 'non-wedding anniversary.' I must have picked this out too, but I can't remember. It's by an Irish singer called Shane Filan, the song is called Beautiful in White. I only know that because she drilled it into me almost every day for the past three years. 

It was going to be our wedding song, she said it would be funny because she wouldn't be wearing white. It used to have a sloppy, sad significance to us. But then Lily decided to get creative one day and edited the hell out of it, turning it into an up tempo dance song, and it hasn't sounded the same ever since.

But it hits me now.

They lift the coffin as the music plays, and they begin to carry her past me, slowly and painfully. I can't look at it; I can't see past the tears. I don't cry, I've never cried, never. But it seems in these past two weeks, I've done nothing but.

The coffin reaches me, and I begin shaking, knowing that she's next to me. She's lying just a few inches from me with her eyes closed and her heart frozen, with no life and no colour and no light, inside that box forever.

"You did good," my mother whispers, "she'd be proud of you."

I just nod, having no energy to speak anymore. I rise to my feet, and I follow the coffin as they carry her out of the church. Lily's family stick closely to the side of me, David and Sarah, her parents, try to smile at me but they don't remember how and they just burst out into tears, holding each other.

I try to stay out of her siblings way, they look too much like her, but it's impossible to escape them. Davina isn't so bad, she's younger, and she's dyed her hair blonde. But Lily's identical twin sister, Rosie, is a walking, breathing nightmare reminder of everything I've lost. It was hard enough to look at the replica of Lily when she was still alive let alone now she's. . .

Rosie nudges my shoulder slightly as she walks, and I accidentally look into her eyes, cursing myself as I do.

"What you said in there, it described her perfectly," she says. "Thank you."

Looking into her eyes takes my breath away, because they're Lily's eyes. She has the same deep, sharp blue. She has the same nose, even her eyebrows curve in the same shape. She has the same voice, the same ears, the same damn hair, even the same damn length. 

 The only difference is that Rosie's body shape is a tad rounder, and she has more fat to her face, whereas Lily was slim and her collarbone poked out without fail. I try to focus on that, that is the only thing that can make it possible to stand her. 

"Jason, I wanted to say how sorry I am for everything that happened when-"

"Stop," I say. "Just, stop. It was a long time ago."

Rosie nods. "I can't believe I'm burying one half of me today." She begins choking on her cries, and her eyes go a sore red. "I still. . . feel her. Is that normal?"

"Nothing about this is normal," I say, becoming dazed by the sun. "Nothing."