Studying the Dead

I felt horrible.

This had all been my idea and now I was the one wishing I could just run home and hide underneath my covers with a tub of full fat ice cream to drown my sorrows.

It was almost worse then the funeral had been – at least at that I hadn’t been the one standing at the door greeting the guests and receiving their condolences. I was removed from the situation, free to grieve by myself.

Here I was the mastermind and surrounded by people who wanted to speak to me.

After Trudy had sent me home from work almost a week ago I’d been a mess. A crying, moping, depressed mess. Louise and Frankie didn’t quite know what to do with me, so they left me alone. I’d been on the phone with Sadie, who was in some far away country that was eating up my phone bill with every minute we talked when I’d decided it was the best thing to do.

Sadie, my slight delinquent sister, had been telling me I had to find a way to bring everyone together – to work through this together and remember Trent. Some sort of memorial was the obvious way to do it so I got to work organizing one at work.

Trudy thought it was a great idea so her, Louise, Frankie and I set it all up in the corner of the Bat Cave. We had a picture of him looking like the happiest person around, certainly the happiest in the room – not one of those school photos that always look so proper, we decided that didn’t really suit his personality – blown up quite big and put in the corner surrounded in candles and flowers.

It was beautiful and horrible at the same time.

Plus we were going to leave it up for as long as we though necessary, in the one place that hurt me the most to remember him.

I felt so selfish too because this wasn't about me, it was about celebrating Trent's life and mourning his death.

As I sat at my table watching all the people who had turned up to leave flowers around the photo and to be with others who understood their pain I could point out the people that knew Trent so well.

There was Jennifer, red and puffy eyed, clutching onto a tissue and Sam and Cole's arms as they stood off to the side with her best friend Jacqueline and a few other close friends, chatting quietly among themselves and generally ignoring everyone else in the room.

I knew Jennifer would be heartbroken. Her and Trent were perfect for each other; Trent always had something good to say about her – even if some other people in the school weren't so fond of her.

The room was full of my friends and people who knew what I was feeling but I'd never felt so alone.

I'd completely zoned out when I'd realized Sam had come over and was standing in front of me waiting for me to come back to Earth.

"You feeling ok, Cate?" he asked taking the seat next to me. My gaze met his and we shared a moment of understanding. Sam wasn't the nicest guy around but he genuinely cared about his friends from what I'd seen. He was one of those typical 'cool guys' that grew up as one of the High School Jocks back in those days and stayed pretty much the same when they got to Uni.

"Mmm, yeah I'll be alright," I replied, knowing exactly how he was feeling by the dull look in his eyes. We sat in silence, watching the people mill around us until Jennifer, Cole and Jacqueline came over as well. We stayed silent for ages, just standing as a group beside the till.

"Trent would've liked this," Jacqueline commented softly. We all nodded in agreement, Jennifer made a slight sobbing noise.

"He would've been trying to make this a happy memory though, he always wanted everything to have a happy memory even the saddest moments had to have something happy to remember from it. Dancing on the tables or telling funny stories about people or something crazy," Cole added. We all laughed and then stopped abruptly as we realized we were laughing – shouldn't we have been crying?

I stared at my hands as we fell quiet, and now slightly awkward, again.
It was Sam who finally broke the silence and voiced exactly what I was thinking.

"No, we shouldn't be doing this!" he exclaimed, we all stared at him in shock. "Didn't we just hear what Cole said? We should remember the good things about him, that's what he would've wanted!"

He was right, Trent wouldn't have wanted to see us looking sad – he hated it when people were sad. I remember when one of our work mates grandfather had passed away and he'd said exactly what Sam was trying to get at 'Don't think about all the things you're going to miss doing with him, think about all the fun you had doing them when you did!'

For the first time in almost a week I was finally able to smile and feel happy about something – that we were doing exactly what he would've wanted.