“I’ll be right there with you,” I confirmed, slipping my hand in his. “Let’s go.”
We entered Poppy’s private hospital room, and Pat’s feet froze halfway through the door as if he’d hit some sort of invisible wall. I gently tugged at his arm while ushering him deeper inside.
“H-hey, Mom,” Pat said softly, making sure to keep his gaze away from Poppy.
Pat’s mother slowly turned her head toward us and gave him a sluggish smile. “Hi, baby.”
He let go of my hand and somehow regained the knowledge of movement, hurrying over to hug her and allowing her to sob in his arms for a few seconds. He let his lips brush against her cheek, and the strained look in his eyes told me he was trying to keep himself from falling apart in front of everyone.
“They want us to say our goodbyes. He has a DNI on file, baby. So, if his heart stops . . .”
“I don’t want him to go, Mama. I love him too much,” Pat confessed. He slammed his eyes shut as tears eased down his cheeks. She reached up to brush a teardrop and stroked the side of his face.
“He’s ready, Pat. He put money aside for this years ago. His funeral arrangements have already been taken care of. All that’s left is for the Lord to call him home.”
Pat nodded while wiping his teary eyes with the back of his hand. He sniffled as his steps minced over to Poppy’s bedside before he slowly folded his body into the chair. He rested his hands over his grandfather’s and bowed his head. I couldn’t tell if he was praying or crying, but at that moment, nothing else mattered to me but being there for him. For all of them.
“I’m here, Poppy. You can go now. It’s okay,” Pat whispered to him.
The four of us stood there in silence, listening to his heart monitor beep until it stopped and went flat a few minutes later. I closed my eyes as silent tears raced down my face. And just like that, Poppy was gone. I didn’t expect to have such an immediate emotional reaction to everything. I thought I’d be more like the anchor—holding everyone down through their storms of grief—but instead, I was in the corner, blubbering and fighting my own grief demons.
Somehow, I managed to make my way to Pat and pull him into my arms. He wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face in the crook of my neck while I cradled the back of his head like a newborn baby.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” I whispered in his ear.
Pat got to his feet after a few minutes, and I watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down in his throat as if he were trying to hold back more tears. I brushed a teardrop from his cheek before cupping his face in my palms and looking into his misty eyes. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll get through this.”
“Together?”
“Together,” I answered.
A week and a half later.
The wedding was two weeks away, and I’d traded in my planned bridal shower for a funeral. A couple of hours before the service, a few of Pat’s close family members—aunts, uncles, and cousins—gathered at his parents’ house, while everyone else convened at the church for Poppy’s viewing. Four limos arrived to transport us to the church, and sometime during our ride, it started to rain as if the Lord himself were shedding tears for the occasion. Large raindrops slapped against the windows, obscuring the view as I watched the scenery zoom by. The limos stopped in an orderly row in front of the church.
I exited the limo dressed in black and carrying an umbrella to protect me from the harsh elements. The hem of my dressfluttered against my knees as I marched toward the church. The sky was gray as the rain fell, kissing my heels as I walked. The slick, wet pavement, combined with the precipitation in the air, made the entire scene somber. The slanted rainfall drifted across the slick pavement as the wind tossed my curls across my face. With Pat’s hand laced in mine, we passed by mourners sniffling and speaking in low voices out of respect for the dead. Not one smile among them. It reminded me of the days I had to bury my parents.It was triggering, to say the least.
“How are you feeling, baby?” I whispered to him, doing a quick temperature check.
“Numb,” he answered quickly. “I hate everything about today. Why did he have to die?” he whispered back as the ushers passed us the fancy, color-printed programs with his grandfather’s face on the front.
“Me too. But grief isn’t linear, and it may be like this for a while.”
Thick wooden doors opened into the sanctuary where soft music played. Our feet shuffled quietly down the patterned carpet, past people speaking in hushed tones, quietly weeping, and not so quietly blowing their noses. A mix of perfumes and colognes filled the air.
The open, glossy silver casket with Poppy’s lifeless body inside was the first thing my eyes landed on, and I immediately pinged my eyes to the space around it filled with dozens of flower arrangements ranging from calla lilies to roses, and the large projector screen on the raised stage with a repeat slideshow of different photos of him throughout his life. I knew the minute we reached the front I wouldn’t be able to hold back my tears.
And I was right. I tasted the salty tears sliding down my lips as I held Pat’s hand and looked into Poppy’s casket. He looked peaceful and like himself. Pat pulled me into a hug, and I rubbedhis back as the smell of fresh flowers wafted past my semi-stuffy nose. I sniffled and crumpled a tissue in my hand.
“C’mon, the funeral is about to start. We have to walk in with the family.”
Once the funeral director closed the casket, we marched in as a family and took our seats on the front pews before the service officially started. And as expected, the creaky, wooden pews were filled with family and friends sniffling, whispering prayers, and reading from the Bibles from the shelf on the back of each pew. I rubbed my free hand over my throat to ease the tightness as the choir sang “Going Up Yonder” during the service. Pat threw his arm around me, and I laid my head on his shoulder while the pastor delivered the eulogy from the pulpit. We held hands while he sobbed silently through the entire service.
When the final prayer concluded, Pat and his stepfather joined the other pallbearers to carry out his grandfather’s body to the hearse parked at the curb, while his mother and I picked up a flower arrangement. Family and friends followed us out with more flowers, preparing to join the funeral procession and follow the hearse to the gravesite. After Pat and the rest of the pallbearers slid the casket safely inside, a few of the arrangements were loaded in around it, and we left.
A few days after the funeral, I still wasn’t in the right headspace to think about anything other than the loss of Poppy, but I knew there were still a zillion wedding things I needed to do—one of those being to finish my vows. The train was barreling toward the aisle at a hundred miles per hour. I couldn’t jump off now,right? After throwing away draft number 1,030,013, I gave up and decided to phone a friend—my only friend—Olivia Gray. She answered on the third ring, and by the look on my face, she immediately knew I was in distress.
“What’s got you making the ugly face, girl?” she quizzed.
