Desperation of Hearts and Butterflies

A lot of funerals have been occurring around me lately and this is what I have observed.

The fake life stares at the back of his eyelids as everyone stares at him resting in his white cushioned bed at the front of the room. He is pumped so full of chemicals, and is covered with more make-up than an actress who is desperate for a job. He is a bad imitation and representation of life.

Positioned around the room, quietly, some laugh together about memories they shared with the lost life, while few others cry at the loss, and even fewer do both. Mostly, everyone tries to act normal. They desperately flit their burning eyes around the room, careful to ignore the empty vessel at the front of the room, the elephant in the room. Those gathered around him, friends and family, once unable to stare any longer, look away with the corners of their lips falling to the floor. Soon, another joins the gathered. They offer reassuring hugs and smiles to each other, but the corners of their smiles still reach desperately for the ground and these smiles never quite meet their swimming eyes.

With the knowledge that they, the newly gathered, cannot help, they awkwardly walk away from the previously gathered, who continue to desperately cling to their memories of the lost life, the vessel, and find the most uncomfortable chair to sit in to have a nice view of the front of the room, desperately trying to avoid the once-vessel in his white cushioned bed. Soon, he has become the elephant for them as well, and the avoidance becomes harder. They stare aimlessly at the front of the room and try to act as normal as possible. In a desperate attempt to avoid the elephant at the front of the room, their blurry eyes awkwardly trace the flowers and fruit that make ironic upside-down hearts and upside-down butterflies, repeatedly fluttering around the pink walls and then growing into the identical curtains framing the windows. A new group enters the room and gives everyone something else to look at.

They take deep breaths and then one big gasp as they finally find what they knew they would see sleeping in the front of the room forevermore, they’re last memory of him. They cautiously walk up to the white cushioned bed, holding the fake life, desperately praying to every deity that he will open his eyes and laugh at the crying souls around him who fell for his joke. They desperately pray that one day, his grandchildren will get to hear about horrible joke Grandpa played less than a year after he graduated high school. They desperately pray that this is all a bad dream. And then, the desperate cycle begins again as they greet those gathered around the fake life staring at the back of his eyelids as everyone stares as him resting in his white cushioned bed at the front of the room.