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I didn’t want to be here.
No one did.
No matter how much I coached or encouraged myself, nothing could have prepared me for what lay ahead. It was one of those times in life when I could clearly hear my father say,“Just jump, Largo. It’s okay to be scared.”
“Follow me, please.”
Doing as he requested, I stayed quiet and walked down a long white corridor, passing through a set of swinging doors that clearly stated, ‘Authorized Personnel Only’.
I took a deep breath.
The area smelled funny. Like bleach and something else I couldn’t pinpoint. It smelled off. Almost stale.
It made my stomach queasy.
I stopped when he walked over to a wall full of square metal doors. There had to be at least twenty of them. Not that I counted, but when he opened one and pulled out a sliding metal table, I froze.
A white sheet covered the body lying there.
It was my father.
I stared at the lifeless body of the strongest man I ever knew. The doctor opened the metal door next to my father and pulled out another metal sliding table.
Another white sheet.
It was my mother.
“They both died on impact. They felt no pain. It was quick.”
Unable to resist the pull, I nodded in acknowledgement, rooted to the ground while my eyes remained transfixed on the two bodies lying adjacent to one another. Completely stupefied, I found myself at a loss for words. I’d never seen a dead body before.
Was I supposed to cry, freak out, have a meltdown? I didn’t know.
Even in death, they went together.
“I just need you to identify them. Then I can release them to the funeral home.”
“I don’t need to see them.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Finn. I know this is hard,” the doctor countered, slowly shaking his head.
Shit.
I forgot about that. I didn’t have a choice in this matter. I knew that even before coming here. He’d told me what I had to do.
“Right. Records and all.”
The man nodded.
Taking one step forward, Dr. Bennington removed the white sheet covering my mother, then my father. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. As I gazed at the scene before me, a profound sense of emptiness consumed me, rendering me speechless, incapable of expressing the very depth of my emotions.
Voidness.
That’s all there was. I felt a strange detachment from myself, as if I had become a mere observer of my own life, devoid of any emotional connection. They looked as if they were sleeping. There wasn’t a mark on them. When I got the call and was told they’d died in a car accident, I expected cuts and bruises, but not this. Take away the surroundings and it looked like my parents were in bed asleep.
It was a strange sight.
It made no sense.
