Homecoming

Chapter 19: Eulogy

My dad died at the hospital that same night he was brought in. A flurry of doctors and nurses came in, commanded by Kathy. Loud voices echoed across the hallways. Zen and I stood outside the room while we watched all of them in action. But everything seemed to be in slow motion, blurry at best. It was before sunrise when the heart monitor flatlined, and my dad's body finally gave up on him. The suffering ended, and death no longer more painful than it needed to be. The cancer took the best of my dad, every inch of his body that loved and was loved. The tumor grew, spread, and squashed every organ that worked to sustain it.

With finality, the doctors called it in. 3:47 a.m.

Zen comforted me through my muffled cries, my shoulders carrying the unbearable weight of the world. He stood there, like a brick wall I held on to for support, but with the way his eyes glimmered with tears—barely holding on, I knew his heart also broke with mine. Perhaps, in death, people realize the connection they had with people. That in sorrow, people got proof of their love for the person they lost.

I didn't know that it was possible to feel this bad when I had been through so much. It was a kind of pain that I haven't experienced before. I want to embrace this pain, but it was bigger than me and a whole lot stronger. It was an unexplainable pain that left me speechless—frozen and all choked up, annoyingly getting tongue-tied.

They said, after the storm, the sunshine returns. So I cried some more and let it all out.

Today was my dad's funeral. I stood in front of the full-length mirror, my unsteady hands fumbling with my necktie. I haven't slept in days, the voices in my head getting louder by the minute.

The house, now emptier and quieter. Even if my dad never took so much space or never said many words, this was his home. Somehow, if I focused enough, I could still feel his presence, lingering around.

I want to disappear, but that would be selfish. Instead, I lifted my head high, stared at my reflection in the mirror, and gave myself a little pep talk. It has always been effective when I had unbearable days.

"You can do this," I said to myself, exhaling. My hands gripped the front panels of my suit, stretching the fabric. "It's going to be a quick service, just like ripping a bandaid off. You'll be fine."

My dad used to tell me about police funeral traditions. The service usually started with an introduction—a reminder of the fallen officer's life—and then a prayer. My dad was particularly fond of the bagpipes, the mournful sound that evoked so much emotion for the loss of a fellow brother or sister. He also wrote the best eulogies. I couldn't quite count how many eulogies he had given for every officer that died in his department. I just knew that there was a lot. For someone who had trouble showing his emotions, he did have perfect control of his words, seamless and ever so gripping. And after the eulogy, there was the gun salute, or for others, a bell ceremony—both sounded at exactly twenty-one times.

I've only been to one funeral—my mother's—and it was as sad as this one. I figured no one should be able to do this—bury a parent—but it was bound to happen. In being born, we already signed a contract, agreeing that life was temporary. And quite eventually, we would leave our bodies and explore the unknown. To me, that was the beautiful irony of life. In living, we were destined to die. For we are only mere mortals, our lives having an inevitable end, an expiration date.

But no explained that losing someone to death would hurt like hell.

They often said that dying changes everything. Dying was the inevitable fact of leaving people for good—the burdening emotional fallout, the painful loss. It was like losing a limb—or maybe even worse—especially if you were a part of that person and they were a part of you. Like, this world would be a whole lot more difficult without that person. Imagine ever living a life without someone, the world moving on without them. I was beginning to understand it.