Memorabilia

Driving, wheels against the winding path slowly uncurling against the heaving engine. Pavement unwinding like ribbon making its way back home.

--

Hometown. It rang like church bells in already aching ears. The buildings seemed to grow with the years, color fading as each person slipped away. The windows, now tinted, and streets aged, became wise with time. Old alleys and stairways hunched over like an older person.

The lawns that once held parties and concealed muddy footprints now overgrown with sprouting weeds and occasional trimmed hedges. Streets that once held competing lemonade stands and water balloon fights.

Neighbors houses now stood in a broken draft from long drawn out AC's that were as old as him.

It used to be something like this.

The parking lot was filled with cars, eyes scanned for a spot trying to remember license plates as the car looped along the lot.

He exited and found a spot on a road that spurred from Maine Street in front of a cafe he presumed was new. The cool air pressed against his body, causing him to tug up his fleece against his neck.

There was a brisk walk to make to the funeral home, and it would need to be a quick one as clouds of dark grey and purples began to veil the morning sun. Thunder rolled in the distance, motioning him to get along.

A woman greeted him outside the building and raised an eyebrow at him, as if to say, Outsider. Her humbleness had seemed to fade looking at him wearily.

"You're here for the funeral procession?" She asked with frowning lips.

"I guess so."

"You guess? How do you know the person we're holding this for?"

"Relative."

"Relative? I wish you'd give more detail, but my hospitality must welcome you in." She held the door open for him as he entered, warmth hugging him gently.

"Coat hanger anywhere?" He asked, holding at his jacket. now taken off from the heat.

Her eyes looked over him in a seeming disgust. Her nails, a sharp red, pinched the jacket from his grasp and lay it on the welcome bench.

He walked through the foyer doors and into a larger room, seated with rows of long-time friends and citizens of the worn town.

His memory tried to recall the face of neighbors and friends he once knew. Heads whipped towards him, stealing glances at this... outsider.

He waved a single hand and sat down in a back pew as an older man climbed the stairs to the front of the room. He stood just taller than the podium, and grabbed the microphone as everyone quieted. Heads turned to the front, away from him, and ears perked as the man began to speak.

"My name is Watson Watters."

The name was not familiar to him.

"I was a dear friend to this lovely woman. Ms. Michaelis, if you will. I got to know her on a personal level when her family left her. She told me, her son was the last to leave her, a noble man."

His eyes narrowed, trying to see if there was any hint of a lie in his voice.

"Ms. Michaelis spent her every waking moment giving. Giving back to us. Her family."

He waved a hand in gesture.

"I know she all came to you in some way with.. a gift of her own care and thought. If you all would, when the time comes, place those gifts in the casket," he turned slightly, extending an arm back to where she lay.

"The gifts she once pleasured us with will now accompany her in her afterlife and beyond."

He drowned out the eulogy, the mushy mournings people were expected to say because the felt they had to.

He wouldn't say anything, not that he could. He'd likely be forced down the aisle and out the door if he tried.

His eyes fixated on a woman in a middle pew making her way to the podium.

"My name is Jenna AnnaFellows, and just having a connection with Ms. Erinne was life-changing. She could speak in a way that would move you. Talk of her past like it was a scar but not a burden.

"She told me a story once, of her son. If I can remember, his name was Jess. He never had a father, he had a monster. And that's what she said. She did everything she would for Jess so that he would not follow him.

"She told me if he left, she'd be fine with Jess. She'd have to tell him someday. Sometimes I tell myself she did because, maybe, maybe he'd be sitting here where I can't see him. I've seen Jess's face before, and to see it in this room here today, on his mothers funeral? That would be something." Her hands, now clammy, placed the microphone down as she took shuddering breaths.

Plaudits erupted from the once silent room, filling the corners with such magnificent sound.

Jess had never begun to visualize his father in a way he could now. He wanted to rewind and pause every moment they went onto the yard and played catch while his mother, eyes tearing up as she told him his father left, he never realized they were tears of happiness.

Years spent like pocket change, mourning a wasteless death of his still-alive father seemed to darken now.

--

Everyone began to make their way to the casket for their respects, their gifts they'd been given. He'd go last so he could see the impact of his late mother and truly bask in it.

Jess made his way up, colliding with a woman about halfway. She seemed dazed, but overly aware and skittish.

"My apologies," she gushed. Her eyes looked over his face, catching that look everyone else had. Outsider. "Do I know you? This town's pretty small-"

"No," he said abruptly to cease her babbling.

"Then you're a relative?"

"Sure."

"Sure? Do you know her?"

"Not personally, no. I had a connection but it didn't click."

"I'm sorry."

"For?"

"Not knowing her. She'd had such an impact on everyone in this room," she turned, arms motioning towards people he didn't know. "Not knowing her was like.. you weren't truly happy."

"I'm plenty happy." He responded with a snap.

"Then why are you here?"

It had made him think. Plunging down into the depths of himself, he pondered the question, letting it roll around his mind freely.

The line had cleared, and now it was just his lone self standing in the deserted aisle. Watson was at the podium, his shadow absorbing the wood.

"Well, young man, do you wish to contribute anything to the casket?"

He didn't even need to look down at his bare hands to remind him of the answer. He returned to the back pew as Watson gave a grunt.

"Perfectly fine, we do not judge in this room. I may continue."

Jess sat with his arms crossed at the back. So much for paying respects. In this town, it was either pay back or earn the disrespect you deserved. Jess solely remembered that, hours of community service for too-pissed-off neighbors. Sunburns on arms, neck, and back because he left a mud rut from his bike on the lawn.

Or a ball thrown by his friends who fled the scene, making him the prime suspect.

He was the Outsider now, someone so close to this magnificent person, yet still so far.

"Moments away, we are to bury this wonderful woman to her well-earned, pea refuel rest, and she will awake in Heaven, her Holy Land."

Jess drowned out the biblical speeches of how God was to accept her in his arms. Jess believed in it from all the days he was dragged to church in disheveled dress clothes, but he didn't want to be seen as someone who had their head in the clouds over a religion.

Two men came in through the back doors, heads turned down in respect. It came as no doubt they had a connection to her, and it began to startle Jess at how his mother had thrived without him, despite calling him almost every day, leaving unwanted voicemails.

"We will now bring Ms. Michaelis to her rest in the local cemetery. Everyone will be able to visit her, and there is no doubt that we will still be moved by her absence."

He placed a hand over his heart. The crowd was eating up the words, placing hand over their hearts in tradition.

"These were her last wishes. Let everyone know that I loved them, dearly. I want to reunite with my son and give him my final gift. Lastly, I apologize to any I may have burdened."

Many were dabbing their eye with tissues from the front room. The men effortlessly picked up the coffin, and brought it down the aisle, allowing tears to brim at Jess's eyes.

--

The dirt concealed the grave, compressing years of stories into minutes. The crowd had cleared, making the headstone the only one in his presence. HE had caught a glimpse of the things put into the casket, pages torn from books, candids from albums. Memorabilia.

The rain had driven all the cars away, and it made the headstone glisten in its glory. Jess let the rain pour down his fleece, let it wash over him, mat his hair, gently dab his cheeks, soak his mushy socks and shoes.

On the headstone, the word MOTHER was bolded, making the words 'to all' afterwards highly insignificant. Jess didn't have anything to give, his depraved hands made it abundantly clear.

But he was here now, in the presence of his mother, a reunion she surely hoped for.

And maybe, he thought, maybe that's enough.