|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 8:51 pm
White Rose Eulogy
Sunlight dripped through the trees to land in golden globules on the terracotta roof of the chapel. A southerly breeze stirred faintly, fondling my hair. The chirping of the birds seemed not so much a sound as an emotion to be perceived in the shifting of the soul. I found the irony almost amusing.
Today is May third, I thought to myself. …But it wasn’t what I was feeling. My heart mumbled quietly... Just last week she was still alive.
Looking to my right, I glimpsed the short, sandy-haired form of my friend Josh. His gaze seemed to be directed at nothing in particular, but I knew better. He was looking at his memories, projected like a disjointed slideshow before his eyes, and with a detached lack of surprise I realized that in the back of my mind, I was, too. The “if I hads” and “could have beens” ran through my subconscious as an infinitely looping movie trailer. I didn’t bother brushing them aside. The hollowness in my chest eliminated the necessity of such an action. Besides, today, on the day of her funeral, memories, and not hindsight, should be the most important things.
Ignoring the inexplicable urge to sigh, I looked up to the clear, crystal sky that she would have loved and wished, briefly, that I believed in the supernatural. Maybe then, at least, I could hold out the impossible hope of seeing her again, maybe as a ghost. I looked around. As anticipated, nothing was there.
I couldn’t feel my legs as they carried me through the chapel threshold, but the solid thunk of the slamming doors was nearly a physical blow.
The cold, empty weight in my mind dulled out the majority of the ceremony. All I could do, it seemed, was stare at the white roses resting upon the lid of the mahogany coffin and remember. I ignored the various eulogies in favor of that little bunch of white roses that proclaimed the inescapable truth: she was gone for good. I tried not to focus on that looming, unbearably real fact, instead shifting my concentration onto the best of the memories that I had shared with her and Josh. It was the highest form of tribute that I could pay to her. Just because I shouldn’t dwell on the past didn’t mean that I shouldn’t remember. As long as I knew and was able to recall at least a little of the times we had shared, I would always carry a little piece of her in my heart, a fragment of the sweet girl that I had known.
And, engulfed in my memories, I didn’t cry, not even as Josh and I climbed into my car and sped away from the life of one of the kindest people I had ever known.
* * *
One week later, I found myself in the small, musty, Gifted room. I smiled bitterly, sensing the ghosts of the past all around me. The room was quieter than usual, and I knew that my classmates could feel it, too.
I noticed an oval paper lying, unclaimed and alone, on a nearby table. A sinking feeling, overlaying what could have been a brief flash of hope, erupted in my chest as I silently picked up my hieroglyph translation sheet and strode over to the table. The sheet confirmed what I had known from the moment I had glimpsed the small, neat, drawings on the cartouche. It read: Eliza. It was hers.
Another bittersweet smile lit my face as I picked it up, reverently, and asked the teacher in a voice made deadpan in emotional restraint if I could keep it. She agreed.
That evening, I laid the cartouche in the center of my mantle, just above the fireplace, as a solemn sentinel and a fond remnant of a girl who no longer existed. To this day, it rests there still, perhaps in another home in another place, but this I have come to know: she, like the cartouche, belongs wherever I am. While people may die and vanish from our lives, we will always remember them, and what they have taught us will always remain indelibly etched into out hearts and minds.
I knew this, too, as, three years later, I delivered the eulogy that I had never before spoken aloud, but had always known, to dedicate the plaque that still hangs in the school in which we had once shared such fond memories. And through the tears of years past, I smiled a true, shining, smile as I watched the principal set a white rose upon the plaque that bore her name.
Whenever I return to visit that school of faint memories and old joy, no matter how aimlessly I wander the halls, I always find myself standing before the plaque that I had pledged to hold her memory forever, and recall the day that the satin petals of a white rose had once caressed her bronze face.
Death waits for no man, but… Who knows? Maybe someday I’ll be able to keep my promise and have one last game of tag with her, held somewhere far away under a clear sky, running in a breezy glade ringed in bushes of white roses.
This is a true story, told to the best my extremely vivid memories can recall. Nothing was forged whatsoever, despite the fact that it's been seven years since it happened, I can still remember all of it with an eerie near-flawless clarity.
This memoir may hit Sepik particularly hard, as she knew Eliza as well. I also still have the cartouche - even in my new house, after I moved, it rests upon the mantlepiece, watching over the room. It makes me feel that in some small way, she'll never be forgotten. Thank you for reading and by doing so, helping keep Eliza's memory alive a little, even though most of you probably didn't know her. Goodbye for now.
-Aurah
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 9:24 pm
My heart mumbled quietly, Just last week she was still alive.
'... quietly. Just...'
Damn it, Aurah. You made me tear up. A lot.
*sigh*
I still have the pillow from the second grade that has her handprint on it.
Thank you for writing this. Beautifully written, of course.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 6:45 pm
Yeah, I had some trouble, too. I had to stop writing a few times to pull it back together and keep going. But somehow I felt like I had to write it, you know? So someone, even if they never knew her, would somehow help keep her memory alive. And I still have the beach ball from 1st grade that she signed...
-Aurah
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2007 6:44 pm
The feeling of being torn apart like that...I am no stranger to it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2007 3:20 pm
I didn't know you lost someone. If you don't mind me asking, who was it?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 9:31 am
A very dear friend of mine in the 4th grade. I will not say her name, but she was my first love. She moved away to Ohio. ninja crying
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 11:42 am
But to me it was the equivalent of death. I never saw her again... crying ninja stare
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 10:06 am
But at least there's a chance, and at least she'll go on to find happiness, even if you can't be part of it. Eliza died in the third grade. She was my best friend. She, myself, and a kid named Josh all got rejected and left behind by our friends at about the same time.
Josh had always been an outscast for his stutter, shyness, and strange word pronunciation (like r's became w's) and I had been ditched by all my friends at once - not hard, since my whole life I've always had a few close friends and a lot of aquaintences. This can be seen in my inability to trust much, as you've seen, Sandwich. Anyway, Josh and I started to hang out. At first it was mutual utility - we used one another even though we didn't really care about each other too much just so we wouldn't be lonely. We always played TV tag. A bit hard with two people, albeit, but we didn't know what to talk about and it made recess a bit more bearable.
Over the course of a couple weeks, though (I'm not sure when) we became friends. Just as we were starting to learn more about one another, however, Eliza got ditched by her friends, too. I was the first one to play with her two years ago when she came from Poland, and though we didn't really talk too much after she made friends a few days after her arrival, she still remembered me and played TV tag with Josh and me.
We played together every day for the next couple weeks and became pretty good friends, though Eliza and I were tighter with each other than we were with Josh (However, Josh and I became closer after Eliza's death. We even drove together to the funeral.) Regardless, we had friends then and we weren't alone anymore. I even invited Eliza and I think Josh to my birthday party on May 5th. (This was the first and only time in elementary school that I told the other guests who was coming.) Every day after recess we promised each other to play TV tag the next day, and we did.
However, on May 2nd we went to the capital in Raleigh and visited the Legislature Building and the Governor's Mansion and a few other places. All told, it was the most boring field trip I have ever been and wil be on. Strangely, Eliza, the perfect-attendance girl, was absent. I was a little worried about her and managed to freak myself out a little with my brainstorming, but with effort I managed to calm myself down. I had planned to tell her that she was my best friend on the bus (I was a bit of an ice cube - I didn't always show my feelings to openly even as a child) but she wasn't there. I contented myself with saying I'd tell her tomorrow at recess. Ignoring the strange feeling in my stomach that I alway got when I came home to a dead favorite goldfish, I didn't know that I would never see her again.
By the time we got back to the classroom, I was dead on my feet. The fatigue didn't even vanish when the two school counselors came into the room giving off a peculiar... Vibe, for lack of a better word. Regardless, everyone was uneasy.
The counselors (I can only remember the speaker; she had frizzy red hair) sat most of us down on the floor, and those who couldn't fit there sat in chairs off to the side. They beat around the bush for a minute of two before finally telling us something like "I'm sorry, but your classmate Eliza is gone."
It felt like fifteen minutes or so, though in reality it was probably one or two, that I frantically told myself of stories set in the olden days that doctors pronounced people dead who weren't. I dredged up and embellished every ghost story I'd ever heard about dead ringers and the like...
...And for a few desperate moments I managed to lose myself in those fantasies, feeling like I was wrapped in a plastic bubble, like there was no one around, like I wasn't in my body at all. The second part was easy, too, since I just happened to be sitting a bit apart from the rest for once, and the only ones around me were Julie and Amanda above, sitting on chairs.
My thinly-stretched illusions shattered (yes, it did feel like something shattered, perhaps like the breaking of a window that had sheltered me from the elements) with Julie's first sob. I didn't bother to look back at her - I couldn't. If I did, I would break down and cry, and then I'd have to accept the truth - that Eliza, my best friend, was dead, and that there were no misdiagnoses, no dead ringers, no second chances. She was dead, and there was no hope against that and no changing that one tiny, unshakable fact.
After Julie started to cry, I only managed to hold myself together for a few seconds before I started to cry, too. Even then, I couldn't hear anything but Julie's sobs. I couldn't even hear my own, but I knew they were there. I went into autopilot mode and stumbled to my seat next to the class troublemaker, Logan, who I'd strangely formed a bond with. But soon, he vanished (or at least it seemed like that to me) and I was mercifully left to cry by myself.
The teacher came and asked if I wanted to sit with others. When I didn't reply, she grabbed my upper arm and led me to a table with others. I didn't have the energy, resolve, or focus to resist.
I have no idea how long I sat there and cried, though I know at some point in time, the strongest one, Tyler, who had been the "official tissue passer-outer" broke down and started to cry. Even then, I knew he had been very strong. In a way, his breaking made me cry a little more as everyone's subconcious grounding point finally gave way. I understand and respect what he had done even more now, as I often serve as a point of stability for my friends whether they recognize it or not.
Regardeless, my mother, who vounteered at the school three days a week and usually stayed after school as well, brought me home early that day. I managed to stop crying an hour or so after that an only cried a two more times for Eliza after that day, though others did so many times. Those two times were once a day before the funeral, which took place a day or so later, I can't be sure - everything blurred then - and again when I wrote the above piece.
She didn't live to come to my birthday party, see the memorial garden we made for her (which I have visited at least every three years or so after her death), witness her parents come to the graduation that would have been hers, where they watched the slideshow I helped make and that I dedicated to her. She doesn't know that I use Valentine's day, her birthday, as a day of memory to her, and somehow always get some flower from somewhere every year to put in a vase int he kitchen. She doesn't see the cartouche she made sitting above the fireplace as it always has since I got it (though it's lost now - I'm sure I'll find it some day).
She won't know any of that because she's dead and I can never change that fact. All I can really do is sit down every so often and remember her, as I tend to do at least once during the week without design. But that's okay, and that's enough, because even though I'm not going to hold myself in the past, I still drag it - and her - along with me wherever I go.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 8:24 am
.......wow.......I never try to trust anyone fully, and I never make bonds with people that I cannot sever, just for that reason. It has served me well... ninja stare
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 3:42 pm
I don't know about that. This is just me, but despite my chronically mistrustful and closed nature, there are a few people I trust - I even have to use one full hand to count them now! This is quite literally a record for me.
However, I don't trust easily and once my trust is broken, no matter how little trust was given, I will never again give it to that person for fear of another betrayal.
I must admit, though, that I'm the fiercely loyal type who, once befriended, will go out on a limb for a close friend. The only way to truly make me angry is to hurt a close friend of mine. I don't think you've ever seen me honestly mad. Annoyed, certainly (all the time, in fact, many times a day). ...But livid? No.
I guess my point is that if over the course of a month or more a person proves themselves trustworthy and their company enjoyable they can become a friend of mine. I guess the reason I don't have too many friends is that I'm easily bored. The problem? I am too smart and my standards too high to fit the norm.
I am not gloating, this is simply a fact. Most people bore me. I want to be able to suggest something and meet resistance, I want an argument. There's no one I hate more than a yes-man, and unfortunately people submit to me wherever I go. On projects, it's always I say "jump" and my teammates ask "how high?" And much to my dismay, they almost invariably fall short and, with quite literally all projects I have ever done, I take the project home and do at least 50% (usually more like 80%) of the work by myself.
But on the other hand, to make bonds that you are willing to sever means that you can never get close enough to another person to trust them and truly enjoy that bond. There is no point in creating something that you expect to break. It is pointless. To never make unseverable bonds is to fear pain and to let it defeat you in the process. People grow mostly through pain, and if you try your best to escape injury, you can never grow much as a person.
This is what I think. I am not attacking your view, for though I don't agree with it, it belongs to you and you have the right to choose your own truths. I am merely sharing my truths with you. 'Later!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 10:51 am
same here about the whole trust thing. I think the reason why most people submit to you is they are afraid of you, despite your looks. ninja stare
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 1:38 pm
Yes, I recall one of my close friends, Tori, once saying that she was intimidated by me even after being friends with me for nearly two years! I was surprised because I am very pale, rather weak and frail-looking (you can easily feel the bones in my arms and fingers, even tracing joints and feeling how the bones connect), always have my long dark hair down and in my face, stay out of crowds, wear large, thick glasses, often smile but seldom truly laugh, remain silent unless I'm with people I know, always wear collared shirts and skirts or long non-denim pants (even if it is summer), and am 4'8", the shortest person in my grade. I fail to see how I am intimidating in the least.
I suppose it must be my agressive personality. I'm one of those people who is chronically shy when someone first meets me and never starts conversations with strangers unless forced to do so. However, if I'm put into a group then I'll immediately take control so my teammates get things done to my straight-A standards. I'm also very domineering when I'm with people I know - I tend to stand out with them.
Regardless, I still don't see how I'm that intimidating. I'm a pale, thin, small bookworm no matter how you look at it. I don't get it! (But admittedly, it IS a good thing that people almost always submit to me; that way, I can get the job done properly. I'm a just a liiiittle obsessive-compulsive that way.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 4:07 pm
Well, at least now I know where your evil, demonic, pessimistic, cynical outlook on life comes from. It's like you are hiding a secret power or someting underneath your frail frame, if you don't mind me saying. ninja stare
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 10:10 pm
...Eh? Are you talking about my issues in the past?
I must admit, even as a little, bubbly, cheerful girl I was wearing a mask - I'd always say things to placate others, I'd lie about my beliefs to make others like me (I still do sometimes. I kick myself for it and call myself a retard, but that doesn't change the fact that I slipped), and I pretended to be happier than I really was because I thought it would make me more likeable. It took me until 1/4 of the way through 7th grade up 'till very early 8th grade to finally manage to take off that mask. That was a very weird time to know me. Someone (I forget who) compared it to a very odd case of schizophrenia/DID (Dual Identity Disorder is the proper name for the condition. Schizophrenia actually has little to nothing to do with multiple personalities).
However, Sgt., if you're wondering why I'll sometimes put on a cheerful act when I'm feeling a bit cornered or shy, that's why - like many others in this world, I have a bad habit of reverting to early conditioning. I try not to pretend to be happy, but sometimes it happens too late to stop it. Luckily, it's a problem that I have mostly in hand now.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 6:54 am
that's good news. I'm sure you already have heard this half a million times, but keep the mask off. I do not like facades. ninja stare
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
