How We Are Meant to Be

As I stare at the minister, it hits me that everything I once knew is about to change. The minister starts in on the final prayer to the ceremony, but my voice is too weak to repeat it. I turn to my left and see Paris and Aires, my older sisters. They hold hands and have their eyes closed as they repeat after the man in black at the altar.

I have to look away as tears start to drift to the inner corners of my eyes. Aires, named after the city my parents once said she was conceived in, holds one of my hands in hers. We are two and a half years apart, but we are the most distant between all of our siblings. She is such a girly-girl while I am the tomboy who gets along better with my little brother than either of my sisters.

My other hand is being held by someone more comforting. The person holding my other hand is Micah Stevens. Micah and I met three summers ago near his grandmother’s cottage in Sandy Lake, Ontario, Canada. It is actually where we now sit as this is my hometown and where my parents’ funeral is taking place. I am now only seventeen and Micah is eighteen. We are the best of friends. I don’t even want to imagine going through this point in my life without him; he’s my anchor.

He squeezes my hand and I look up at him. Carefully, he wipes the tears from my cheeks and then pulls me closer to kiss the top of my head in a reassuring manner. I let go of Aires’s hand and nestle myself further into Micah’s side. My face rubs against his sports coat and I feel my tears soak into his deep purple dress shirt that is peeking out from his coat near his chest.

I can tell that Paris, the beauty of my family, my eldest sister at four years older than me, and named after the most beautiful place my parents had visited, notices this action because I can feel the weight of her gaze on my face. I choose to ignore her and close my eyes, mouthing the final words to the oh-so-familiar prayer. This is, after all, the fourth funeral my family has been put through in the last few years.

My parents died in a car crash off the main drive in our small Ontario town three days ago. It was a curve few people attempted in the dark unless they were completely sober or had been driving it for decades. None of the high school kids, like my brother or I, were allowed to take it at night. We were forced to take the straighter, more off-the-beaten-path roads to be safer. If a police officer found a teen in an accident on that drive at night, it was almost automatically a loss of their license. It may not have been entirely legal, but the town made it work for their advantage because all they were trying to do was keep the children of the town safe.

We had also had our grandparents pass away, only two short months apart a little over a year ago now. They were our mother’s parents who had lived just around the corner from our home. Grandfather had gone first - due to diabetes. He never could get it under control, nor wanted to. Grandmother had pestered him relentlessly and he never got it through his head until it was too late. Grandmother died two short months later, we all believe it was broken heart syndrome. The doctors like to say it was a cardiac arrest, but there was little chance of that because Grandmother was the healthiest and most fit person any of us ever knew.

The final funeral, aside from my parents’ combined funeral, was for our only uncle. He was our father’s brother and only surviving relative that my sisters, brother, and I had the chance to get to know. He was killed by a drunk driver in the United States four years ago. His funeral was brought back here to Canada due to my father insisting that his brother be buried with their parents, so I had still yet to leave the country.

Before I could process it, the pallbearers are moving the caskets past us; my younger brother Dallas is one of them. They pass our pew and then we follow behind them. Paris, being the oldest, leads us out and stops at the front door of the church to receive final condolences from friends and relatives before they either head home or to the luncheon we planned. As a family, we are going to see my parents’ burial and then join the rest of our funeral-goers for a nice meal.

Today is a sunny day, which makes me happy on this sad occasion. My mother’s favorite kind of day was when it was exactly like this, around 15 degrees Celsius with very few clouds in the sky. There also wasn’t a breeze today which would have made my father enjoy this weather too. He had horrible allergies and the wind only brought out the worst in him. So, overall, it’s the best day to have their funeral and remember them.

Micah’s father had offered to drive us and we graciously accepted. None of us are in a well enough condition to drive today. The Stevens’ are from just outside of Montreal, Quebec, so when they came to Sandy Lake especially for the funeral, we were all grateful. Micah’s father borrowed his mother’s car to drive us to the cemetery.

When the final person had made their way out of the church, I follow Micah to his grandmother’s Chevy Suburban at the curb. He first opens the passenger door for Paris and then the back door for me. I climb all the way into the back and Micah follows close behind. My sister and brother as well as Micah’s brother slide into the middle of the car.

Aires leans into her boyfriend, Daniel Stevens – the adopted Stevens brother – as the car heads to the cemetery. Paris’s boyfriend, Drew Jr. Stevens is waiting for us at the cemetery and he leads us to the grave sites where the caskets are waiting to be lowered into the ground. The caskets are of a fine mahogany colored wood and covered in our mother’s favorite flowers, pink carnations. She always said that anything more expensive than carnations were crap. She was just as happy to get carnations as roses, and they were a lot cheaper. Dad usually bought her a bouquet once a week, and they were always pink carnations that she would rave about each and every week.

“Please take your final flowers,” the undertaker tells us quietly. Slowly, my sisters and I gather the flowers and hold them close to us despite our black clothing. We mumble a final prayer together and let the undertaker lower the caskets.

The Stevens’ boys have their arms around us girls as we weep and Mr. Stevens graciously wraps an arm around Dallas’s shoulder. We are left alone as just the seven of us and our final tears of the day are shed.

My last memory of the day is of my first kiss, a thoughtless kiss of comfort from Micah. It was quick, simple, and amazing. And the rest of my day became a blur.