Unlike family, which we are born into and expected to love, we choose our friends to accompany us during our journey in life, and we offer them our love without a hint of obligation. This simple and glorious act of selection makes loving the ones we choose even more marvelous. However, there is an inherent risk in growing to love someone; the risk that we will have to partake in the heartrending sorrow of having to say a final goodbye.
It can seem utterly unfathomable that the voice we love to hear may one day be silenced forever, that the eyes into which we peer with amusement and affection may no longer gaze upon us; but mortality will not hesitate to remind us of its existence. This reminder can assault our emotions with such excruciating swiftness, that we wish for any assortment of physical pain to take its place.
On March 17, 2002, I was introduced to the confusion and sorrow of the unexpected death of a loved one. I, like most of us, have had my share of distant relatives and friends of friends, etc., passing on. Never before was I forced to deal with the death of someone who honestly mattered to me. We were nurturing a blossoming friendship, one that we agreed would last a lifetime, so the cause of his death left me consumed with many questions.
Why would he leave? How could he walk away from my growing love for him and the love of all those drawn to him who couldn't avoid the brilliance of his personality? Did he know we loved him? How horribly sad and destitute he must have been to not be able to see happiness on his horizon; and why did I not see this, why didn't any of us?
Within the week following his death before his funeral I felt myself being pulled into a sort of depression. I was barraged with constant thoughts of how shallow I must be to have been merrily bouncing along in my life, when someone I claimed to care for was practically dying inside. I didn't blame myself for his death, but I definitely faulted myself for not being more perceptive. I am sure all of us who loved him shared that guilt to an extent.
We were all freshmen in college, away from our homes and established support networks, extremely susceptible to the pressures and pitfalls of late adolescence/early adulthood; the differences in personality and character made some of us even more so than others. My friend was more sensitive than most, as I noticed by one of his charming quirks, the amusing habit of analyzing, discussing and flat-out complaining about whoever did him even the mildest injustice, and there was always someone and something. I never grew weary of listening to him, which made the fact that I would never hear him again ever the more difficult to come to terms with.
I never thought funerals served any particularly healthy purpose; in fact, I thought them to be simply torturous. How could anyone possibly sit for hours with the body of their loved one encased before them before being committed to the ground and not feel like joining them?
A big part of me did not want to go to his funeral. However, I had this persistent feeling that I would run into him in NSC before my class like I usually do when I am a little early. I would catch a glimpse of someone who resembled him and crane my neck ignoring the quiet rational voice that told me that it couldn't possibly be him, that he was gone. I needed to say goodbye to the form of him I had grown accustomed to and acknowledge his new life as a resident of my heart and memory; regardless of how sad it would prove to be.
The part of the funeral that was the most difficult was when his casket was rolled into the funeral hall. It was as if reality was bearing down on me like a speeding truck. That can't be him in there! He can't fit in there; he was so much more than a body, so much bigger than those few pounds being wheeled around. I was distraught by these thoughts but at the exact same time I came to the realization that it was these very thoughts that would help me through this period of grief.
I was not saying good-bye to my Zachary; I was saying good-bye to the flesh that was only meant to hold his spirit for a short while. The part of him that really mattered, the best part of him I hold inside me and nurture everyday when I think of something funny he said or how sincere and earnest he was when we had our heart to hearts.
My ears and eyes said goodbye to Zachary Michael Emerton on March 17, 2002, but I say hello to him in his new home in my heart every morning.
