The Fear of Loving You

Chapter 3

I never went through with the closing on the house we were supposed to buy because I knew I couldn't afford the house, and I knew it was of no use to me. I didn't need a house made for six people if there was only one of me. It saddened me to have to do that to the current owners of the house, but I just couldn't keep the house.

When I went to talk with some funeral directors, it didn't quite go as I'd planned. I had believed that they would help me do what I wanted and get it over with, but that just wasn't how everything went down.

I walked into the funeral home only a few days after I'd left the hospital. I knew the funeral directors wanted to get this going so we could do with the bodies what we wanted before—dare I say it—they decayed too much. It pained me to think about. I didn't like thinking about the fact that my family was decaying.

I met with one of the directors, and she seemed very nice. I could tell she was sympathetic but not empathetic. She tried her best, at least.

"Miss, I'm very sorry," she apologized, just like everyone else did who knew what had happened.

"Thank you," I replied with the words I had used many times before.

"I will try to help you and make this as painless for you as possible." She smiled sweetly. I knew there was something behind her smile, though. She didn't care much about my particular case. She dealt with these kinds of cases every day. When she said "as painless for you," she had meant "as costly for you." She proved my point as we continued to talk.

"I don't want to have a funeral," I told her. "I just want to have my family cremated, all of them."

"Well, we'll see what we can do." She led me into a room in the back of the funeral home. It was filled with filing cabinets, and it had a desk with a chair in front of it and behind it. She motioned for me to sit down in the chair to the front of the desk while she took the seat behind the desk.

"What do we need to talk about? I just told you. I want my family cremated. I don't want to make a big deal about their passing. It would just make it worse for me. Plus, we don't really have any other family that would have a say. I'm the closest family member, so I get to make the decisions anyway." I didn't mean to sound rude, but I really didn't want to have to deal with everything that was involved with a funeral.

"I understand. I just want to talk a little bit more about your options." She smiled at me as she looked at me across the desk. I had no options. There was no living family to have a funeral for, not any close friends who would travel from Georgia to come to a funeral for five out of the six in the Cole family.

I couldn't believe how she couldn't understand it. I didn't want to talk about my options because I'd already had my mind set on not having a funeral. However, we spent the next hour and a half talking. I finally got it through her head that I was getting my family cremated. She realized after a long time that I wasn't going to change my mind. I knew what she wanted. She wanted me to have a funeral so she would get more money that way, which proved my point further. After giving up all hope of convincing me to have a funeral, she agreed with me that it was best for me to cremate all five other members of my family. I wanted to tell her, "I told you so."

"We will get back in touch with you soon," she told me, walking me out of her office and towards the door. "You have a nice day, now."

I was shocked by how long it took her to give up on me, compared to the time it took her to kick me out of her office after she realized she wasn't changing my mind.

I soon had five urns; they were labeled with which family member's remains were inside of each of them. I was glad I had them, but I tried to put them in a place where I wouldn't see them often. Seeing the urns made me cry even harder than I had before. It really hit me then that there was no turning back. I would never hear my brothers' voices again. My mother would never give me advice ever again. My dad wouldn't be able to sit on my bed beside me at night to just talk about what had happened that day. I would never be able to do any of that again.