Unspoken Words

Allison focused on a single drop of rain as it trickled down the stained-glass windows. The church was full, every seat of every pew reserved, but one wouldn’t know it unless they saw it. Every voice came in a hushed tone as if the slightest increase in decibel would shatter the little bit of peace that was present. They'd gone with a closed casket, the obvious choice being they didn’t have a body to place inside. Next to it, a poster-sized photo of Jake and Dallas the day Jake had gotten him from the rescue center.

That was before. Before Jake had taken up solo-hiking. Before he'd fallen in love with getting lost in nature. Before the last five days of endless helicopter searches, police reports, panic attacks and tears shed. The church had originally forbidden Dallas's attendance due to the strict no animal policy, but after a brief conversation with Allison's father Bruce, the policy was waved. Dallas had been dressed for the occasion, a little bowtie around his neck in place of his collar. Even so, the change of attire did little to lift anyone's spirits, least of all Dallas's. He had eaten or slept since Jake had disappeared and even now he sat rigidly, intently watching the door as if his owner would stroll in at any moment.

It wasn’t going to happen. Allison's heart would break for Dallas if it wasn’t already dismantled beyond repair. She looked away from him and back to the casket. She hated it. She hated that it cost more than her first car. She hated that it had been polished and shined to the point of nauseum. She hated what it represented. She shifted her focus back to the picture of him. To his smile. That smile that lit up every room he walked into. Charm and looks. He was one of the few men on the planet who had it all.

Allison had always envied her brother. Things had seemed so easy for him. Straight A student without ever studying, captain and star player of the football team in high school and college without ever putting forward a true effort in practice, a list of girlfriends longer than his arm, great job in tech sales that made him enough to drive a Mercedes and buy an eight-hundred-thousand dollar home for just him and Dallas.

She'd been bitter for most of their life, but now she regretted every second. She could have been enjoying him. Embracing every second that she had with her only sibling, but instead she'd focused on what he had and she didn’t. On what was easy for him and hard for her. She asked herself silently, happy now? Now she had one thing he didn’t. Life. Air in her lungs and a beating heart. Even though his body hadn’t been recovered, the relentless search that had only returned a blood smeared boulder at the bottom of a hundred foot rock face had told them all they'd needed to know.

Jake was gone and they had to find the strength to say their final goodbyes to him. They had to figure out how to bury a casket and plant a headstone in a spot where he would never be. It felt unfinished. That was what had filled her. That feeling of things being unfinished. The idea that she would never get to meet his future wife for the first time or hold his first-born child or see him grow into an old man. His life was left unfinished and so too had been their relationship. Things would never be finished, but that wasn’t stopping the pastor as he began climbing the steps to the lectern.

"My name is Doug Pendleton, and I will be officiating today. On behalf of the family, I want to start by thanking you all for coming today. These things are never easy and are always painful, but that pain can be eased by the presence of the ones we love. We are gathered in this place to celebrate and remember a truly beautiful soul. Jacob Muller was exceptional. He was a loving son and brother. A proud dog-dad. A man of integrity and honor and a fierce, fierce friend."

As he went on and on about Jake and how great he was, Allison was busy trying to remember the last thing she'd said to him. She rung her hands together over and over and could feel them turning raw as she did, but she couldn’t help it. It was maddening that she couldn’t remember. She knew what she hadn't said. She knew she hadn’t told him that she loved him. Of course she did, but it was only now that she realized how seldom she'd said it out loud.

As she tried to force the memory to the front of her mind, people began rising to say their piece about Jake. One of the first was Chris Dawkins, Jake's best friend since preschool. Chris was a wiry guy, gangly even. He was maybe a hundred and fifty pounds, but today he was carrying more weight. He wiped away tears as he told a story about he and Jake sneaking into the town pool after hours.

"His exact words were, 'let's do something crazy tonight'," Chris said, laughing and crying simultaneously. "So, you know, I figured we were making a party out of it. Have a few beers, maybe call up some girls, that kind of thing. Jake shows up wearing goggles and a snorkel, floaties on his arms, flippers on his feet and a bag of caramel corn. Not beer, not liquor. Caramel corn."

It was the first time since people had begun filtering in that a noise louder than a murmur occurred as the entire room began to giggle at the thought of that event. It was just like Jake. Always making people laugh, creating a good time out of thin air. Chris finished his story and the momentary humor had been enough to encourage other people to set their grief aside for a moment to share a memory they'd had with Jake.

One of his coworkers talked for almost fifteen minutes about Jake's work ethic, about how it could rival that of the Amish. Someone he'd volunteered at the animal shelter with recalled all the times Jake had stayed overnight in the kennels with the dogs that hadn’t been adopted and couldn’t be penned with other animals so that they wouldn’t have to sleep alone. Even their mother found the courage to say what few words she could make out through trembling lips.

"As comfortable as he was in it, he never wanted to be the center of attention," she said. "Even so, he would have loved this."

Allison realized that she was smiling. Through the ache in her heart, she was smiling. Smiling at the thought of who her brother was. At a side of him she had never seen. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to see it. Maybe she hadn’t tried to. She was lost in that thought when she heard her name.

"Allison?" Pastor Doug asked gently. "Would you like to say a few words?"

She hadn’t planned on saying anything, but something in her forced to her feet before she had a chance to think it through. She stood too fast and her legs wobbled hard as she climbed the steps. She took her place behind the lectern and gripped the sides of it hard, forcing her balance to stabilize. It was only then that she realized how dry her mouth was. Like she hadn’t had water in days. The truth was, she probably hadn’t, but it hadn’t bothered her until now. She rubbed her throat as she tried to come up with something to say.

She didn’t have funny stories about him. She didn’t have memories of him working or rescuing mistreated animals. All she had was the truth.

"I um…wow, uh…what can I say about Jake."

The audience watched closely as she silently scrambled to find words.

"Jake and me…we didn’t always see eye to eye. We didn’t always have the best relationship…especially over the last couple years. But even though that's true…"

The crowd blurred as her eyes swelled.

"I still loved him. I've spent so much time this week thinking about all the things I never said. When you're young, you just assume you're going to live a long time. You don’t grasp that it could end at any second. I just always thought we had nothing but time. We argued a lot. Big brother, little sister, it just kind of comes with the territory but…the arguing isn’t what I remember most."

As she settled on the memory that represented him best, she felt a smile appear on her lips for only the second time in days.

"What I remember most is that on Christmas morning, every single year, Jake gives me a multi-colored, glittery, snow globe. Ugliest thing you have ever seen," she said, the people in attendance giggling to themselves. "I don’t even know where he finds them, like who makes ugly snow globes and actually sells them? Somehow he finds a different one every single year and every year I ask him why. Why an ugly snowglobe? I always thought it was a gag gift, but his answer was always that they reminded him of how I used to believe magic was real."

The smile faded and the tears returned.

"I never appreciated it but…now I think what he was really doing was trying to give some of the magic back to me. I wish…I wish I could thank him. I wish I could tell him that I'm sorry. I wish—"

Bang!

The outburst startled Allison so much that she jumped in place as her words were cut short. She looked down the isle toward the entrance of the church, along with everyone else, to find a man standing in the doorway. He was shivering, his clothes were coated with mud and there was a fresh wound on his forehead. No one said a word. No one could say a word. No one except Allison.

"Jake?"

It came out so muted even she could hardly hear it, but I was all she could muster as she looked on in disbelief. Gasps and cries came from the crowd as they registered what was happening in front of their eyes.

"What the hell is going on?"

Allison was halfway up the isle before she realized she was moving. Dallas had made it to him only an instant faster and she almost tripped on him as she slammed into Jake, wrapping her arms tight around him as if letting go would mean he would disappear into thin air.

"Ah, easy, sore ribs," he said, wincing in pain.

"How are you alive?" she asked, still holding onto him.

He looked around the room realizing that everyone there was wondering the exact same thing.

"I'm so sorry everyone, I never meant to scare you. I probably should be dead, to be fair. I fell off a mountain. Thankfully it wasn’t so high that it killed me, but it was high enough that I smoked my head when I got to the bottom and got a concussion. Short term amnesia I guess? Some hunter found me, I woke up in his deer blind. Lesson learned, never hiking without my phone or wallet again. It took a few days for me to remember my own name, let alone everything else. As soon as it all came back to me and I realized I had been missing for days, I went straight to mom and dad's. No one was home but I saw the funeral flyers. I came straight here."

Looking around and unable to ignore the opportunity, he did his best to lighten the mood.

"I guess we can do an open casket now."

The entire room exploded, several people screamed out loud, a mixture of anger and relief being too much to hold in. Their Aunt Ruth fainted in the front row and tumbled onto the floor, those around her rushing to help. Pastor Doug retreated to the corner of the church and began praying to himself while many others had to leave the church and collect their thoughts and emotions. As they did, Allison helped Jake walked to the front pew and sit, Dallas placing himself right in between Jake's legs with no intent of every leaving his side again.

"I was about to say goodbye," Allison said, swatting away another tear from her left cheek.

Their mom and dad hugged him and cried, their mom's mascara running down her face like war paint.

"You idiot," she said, "you beautiful, beautiful idiot! You're never hiking again!"

He smiled and nodded before looking back at Allison.

"Did you mean that? What you said about my snow globes?"

"You heard that?"

"Caught the end of it," he said smiling.

"I meant it…there's so much I never said…I didn’t want to lose my chance."

"I know what you mean. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I saw that flyer. I was lucky. I could have died out there and the idea of things between us being left like that…"

They sat there together, swaddled in silence, for a long time. Jake finally broke it.

"Well, this is awkward."

"You have no frickin clue," she said giggling.

Chris Dawkins approached them, a Styrofoam cup in each hand.

"Okay, I've had a moment to collect myself and in coming back down to reality I realized we have a whole lot of finger food and punch. It would be an actual tragedy if that all went to waste."

Although no one said it, the gathering became a true celebration of life, rather that the grieving of losing one. Aunt Ruth woke up and those in attendance came to grips with the reality of what had happened. Instead of storming off, furious over what they had all been through, they stayed and enjoyed each other. It was an awful thing that had happened, but it had served as a reminder. Life is short. Moments are miracles. Every breath and every instant spent with each has to be appreciated. Today, each of them had a second chance. A chance to start over. A chance to do it right.

Allison stood to one side of the room watching everything unfold. Watching her brother, a smile on his face, surrounded by all the people who loved him so much. Maybe tomorrow they could talk more about how they'd gotten here. Maybe tomorrow they could say the things neither of them had ever said. Maybe they could start fresh, but right now, she had her brother back. For now, she had enough.