Good Men Die Young

The funeral email came as a surprise to me. James Newman had died; his funeral was on the following Friday. What surprised me was not the news of his death, having already received that information in our graduation text group, but instead the invitation itself. 

*

'Why me?' Harry thought to himself. He thought it might be a cruel joke, mentally racing through a list of people who would do something this eccentric in 'bad taste' and on finding no suitable candidate did he resign to his fate. Harry opened the email.

*

"Invitation to the funeral of Mr. James Newman."

Hesitating for a moment, I finally cooked up the courage to read the mail. 

"It is with a heavy heart that we write this letter. James passed away last week from a fatal accident. In his memory, we will be holding a funeral on the 6th of August..."

The strangest feeling washed over me as I re-read the email a few more times. A tug of nostalgia followed by sorrow, something that I had repressed over James' death till now. It'd been a long time since I last met or spoke to him, five years to be precise. So when I had read of his passing in the text group during lunch, I only spent the fleeting moments chewing on my sandwich, shocked. And by the next bite, I had moved on to pondering about our mortality as a collective species, more specifically my own.

*

This was not completely true, as Harry had willed himself to stop thinking about James. It worries me to say, but in all honesty, Harry was a man who was rarely true to his feelings.

*

On the day of the burial, I arrived to find most of the seats taken by mourners dressed in their most elegant of blacks', sitting in silent reverence before the embalmed body of a dear son, friend, or husband. I quietly walked up the aisles, scanning for an empty seat and hopefully a recognizable face. Then, from among the rows, an auburn-haired woman signaled to me, mouthing, "Harry, sit here", with a gentle wave in my direction. Sarah was a shy girl from our graduation group, though now she's on the executive board of a large management company. Shuffling through a row of silently bereaving relatives, I reached the empty seat beside Sarah. 

"Knew you'd come. Real sad though, isn't it?"

I nodded in agreement. 

"Didn't think they'd invite me to his funeral," Sarah said in a hushed voice. 

*

"Married huh?", thought Harry catching a glimpse of the ring on her slender finger. Jenny still had that charm of naivety about her. 

*

That was only in appearance though, I suspect. The moment I sat down and our brief pleasantries were over, Sarah reverted to her composed look, staring ahead at the service taking place. 

*

Stealing glances at her, Harry noticed her smile had changed into a stolid expression. In her well-pressed black blouse and skirt, Sarah had the beauty and appeal of a young weeping widow.

*

She wasn't the same person. I couldn't allow that mistake on my part. A person of her position could never be treated lightly. Sarah had grown up, and I had to realize it.

"Hey, Sarah" 

"Why were we invited? I haven't spoken to him in ages..."

Sarah cut him off.

"You haven't heard," She asked. 

Harry shook his head side-to-side; he hadn't a clue.

"I swear, Harry" Sarah sighed with a look of disappointment, and I suspect disgust.

"James' 'accident' is supposed suicide. I spoke to his mother after receiving the mail. In his dying letter, he asked for closest friends to be invited. But I guess not everybody could make the journey here. You're the only other person I know here."

I didn't know what to say.

*

Harry's mind was flustered, "closest friends", how is the person you haven't spoken to in five years even come under that description. 

"I figured at least you would have kept contact." chimed in Sarah, breaking Harry's flow of thought.

*

"Why would you say that? " I answered, knowing the answer already.

"Don't lie, Harry. We knew you looked up to him. Considering how competitive you were about things in college, I'm surprised you haven't kept in touch. " 

"I wasn't overly competitive," I said in a hushed voice.

"Oh, please. You have been running the same business you started right after college, thinking you could do better than James and become the next big thing."

I didn't answer.

One by one, people went up to the open casket to give their condolences. 

A middle-aged couple stood guard beside the casket- greeting each person with a forceful smile. The sort of smile that hides a thousand sorrows, the kind of smile that shows your pain because you've dried out your tears and reconciled to a cruel execution of fate.

"I think I'll go visit James," I said instead.

"I didn't mean..."

*

Getting up before she could complete her sentence, Harry headed towards the cold, soulless, embalmed body of a dead friend. She's changed a lot, he thought. "Everybody's changed a lot, I suppose", he thought.

*

Slowly walking up to the coffin, my steps rapped against the hard marble floor. Each step fall rang through the catacombs of my heart, eliciting a perverse excitement within.

James rested in his well-crafted coffin with a zen expression peaceful enough to turn the living slightly jealous. He was a tall, lanky man, well shaven now, with wavy dark brown hair, thin lips and a pointed nose, the perfect combination of features for his signature condescending look. I looked upon him, contemplating my current advantageous position over him. 

"I breathe while he lays there a dead carcass." I thought. 

*

The small distance between the coffin's comfy interior and the rest of the waking world was what separated the two of them. This vast difference pleased Harry, peering down from his throne of vitality and life.

*

 "Was I breaching upon his land of peaceful ice-cold death?" I thought with guilt.

 It did not matter, for his mute body could not protest. I felt free, liberated. Free from his absurdly pretentious choices, from him stealing the spotlight from all those around him.

I made my way back to my seat after giving my condolences to the parents. They were good people. The funeral service wrapped up, and the coffin was carried outside for the burial. 

*

 A thought burst into Harry's mind. "What made me worthy of being alive?

What had stopped me from killing myself? Fear? False optimism?" If James felt unworthy of himself, then where did it leave Harry? James was a prodigy; he isn't. James was seen as the next big thing while he drowned among the multitudes. These thoughts swirled around in Harry's head.

*

Sarah left after the service, inviting me to a coffee sometime. I agreed and said, "That's a great idea." Pulling in for a final hug before we went our separate ways, she whispered an apology to me. 

I stuck around for the burial.

Even though it was barely afternoon, thick rain clouds covered the sky, with light rays breaking through the barrier of dark condensation in patches, or in some cases creating a glowing halo around these menacing clouds. 

As the coffin descended, Harry's mind turmoiled in existential dread and guilt. But now that the tombstone of the buried man stood before him, Harry didn't know exactly how to feel. He stood before a friend's grave, someone he should have cared about, having spent a lot of time together in college. "Maybe James forgot me", Harry thought, but on his own part, it was ego.

"I shouldn't care for him.", I murmured to myself. Yet the fact he invited us to his funeral is probably his way of saying, "I'm but human at the end of the day, and here you share bear witness to me at my lowest." So how could I withstand the unreal courage of this man? Even a man like him couldn't resist the urge of death. 

Slowly the crowd dispersed from the grave. Lying six feet under dirt, James still clung onto me, freezing my legs to the ground. I stood there reading the engraving on his tombstone, hoping I could forgive him and myself and move on. 

"Excuse me, but how do you know my son?"

*

Harry turned around to find James's father, a tall, slender man with a head full of greys. He looked at Harry for an answer, with his brown eyes brimming with profound sadness. Harry understood this was James' father. No father wants to attend his child's funeral. To him, James was but only a child, and rightfully so. 

"He was... my friend," Harry said, peering into the grieving man's eyes. He didn't know if it was guilt or true love for a remnant of his past, but he teared up.

*

James's father pulled me in for a hug and softly said, "He was a good man. Take care of yourself, son. Life's beautiful, and there's a lot worth living for."

*

Harry broke down crying like a child in the arms of the grieving soul. The grey, murky sky groaned, indicating a tepid storm awaiting them if they didn't hurry up.

*

But we stood there in front of the grave of one of the most important men we had ever met.