Death Comes For Us All

They say that one of the hardest things you can do is love someone.

Death Comes For Us All is short story about dealing with grief regarding the death of a loved one. It is beautifully tragic and I’m very proud of it, I hope you guys enjoy!

Summary

How would you react if the love of your life was taken from you far too soon. Would you be sad? Numb? Empty?

For Ash, he wasn’t quite sure how he felt. Well, that is until he got up on the podium to deliver the Eulogy for his love. And, boy, was he angry.

The experimental piece: I write this story from the first person. We hear about the loss and the anger from the perspective of the person experiencing it. This is also my first time writing something directly from my life, this conflict and fear belong to the people around me in regards to my fucked up health.

~2.2k words, queer tragedy and grief

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They say that one of the hardest things you can do is love someone. Give your everything to another person with no guarantee that you’ll get anything back for it.

How much it will hurt when your soul is damaged beyond repair in their hands and then discarded.

But what they don’t tell you is how much worse it is when that love is reciprocated. When you give every fiber of your being over and in turn they give you theirs.

When you find a home in another person you run the risk of losing it all. Of having Thanatos come and snatch them from you and you can’t do anything about it. Watching your loved one wither away to nothing and then disappear from your life as if they were never there to begin with. Their memory haunting every inch of you.

No, they don’t tell you about the pain of reciprocated love. Because if they had, I never would have allowed myself to fall in the first place.

It’s not that I regret falling in love. No, the time I spent with Kodi was amazing. It wasn’t the easiest thing to let myself fall in love, but it has been worth it.

A deep voice rumbles through the speakers as I sit in the uncomfortable metal folding chair at the funeral home. The monotony of the day has finally caught up to me, I am unable to focus as the pastor drones on.

Instead I find my eyes drifted over to the casket. A beautiful wooden casket made for a man who had passed too soon. Far too soon, it feels like only yesterday we met.

I am snapped out of my thoughts as I feel someone shaking my shoulder. Looking over at the blurred face next to me, I notice their lips moving but no sound coming out. A glance to the podium where the pastor was speaking told me that it is my turn to speak. The pastor was standing to the side, the weight of his gaze on me enough to make me clam up.

With a sigh, I stand up and make my way to the podium. I’m not sure of what I’m going to say. There’s so much on my mind with the sudden onset of the funeral and preparations that I haven’t been able to draft a eulogy amidst the chaos.

But as I look over the sea of blurry faces, I know.

“I stand before you all today, see you sitting here mourning my loss with your husbands, your wives, your long term partners.” Emotions clog my throat, making it hard to get the words out. “I see you and I am upset.”

A shocked murmur sweeps across the room. I can see people in the crowd start squirming as I clear my throat. Good, let them feel just a fraction of how I have felt all week.

“I am upset because this moment, standing in front of this casket and speaking to you, means that I will never get what you guys have. I will never get the chance to grow old with my partner. I will never marry him. I will never raise kids with him. I will never attend the funeral of a loved one with my anchor at my side.”

Tears start to carve rivers into my face and my voice strains. I really should have prepared a eulogy, practiced it so that I could make it through the speech with no hiccups.

But that’s not what I did. I am just speaking the truth, what is on my mind since Kodi left him. Left me all alone with a hole in my chest where my heart used to be.

“And the worst part is that I could never be upset at him for this. I knew that this day would come, the very fist time he told me loved me he followed it up with:

“I know I won’t be around forever, but my love will”

The words shocked me and I looked up from the book I was reading. It was a brisk autumn day, we had come to the Park to get some fresh air after moving all of Kodi’s belongings into my apartment.

Colorful leaves floated by on a chilled breeze as I turned to face him. He was looking up at the sky as if he were sending a prayer to a God that neither of us believed in.

A whispered, “I just want you to know that I love you,” as tears started to well in my eyes. No, he wouldn’t be with me forever. But at least I have the chance to love him now.

A pause, I take in a shaky breath and struggle to maintain composure. I know that the harsh fluorescent lights betray the tracks of tears already running down my face but I don’t need to show an ounce of vulnerability more than that.

“He warned me about what I was getting into from the very beginning and yet I refused to heed his words. Refused to acknowledge the he was right and that I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

“Not that I would have ever left him. Kodi was a part of me that I never knew I was missing. At least, until I had him in my grasp. Once I got used to having him in my daily life I knew I couldn’t go back to how it was before. I can’t go back to that lonely existence; the kitchen that held no love, the living room that wasn’t truly lived in, the bedroom that yearned for another being.”

It was way too early to be awake. I don’t even know why I allowed Kodi to convince me to take up a new exercise schedule. Hitting the gym at a reasonable time of day is just as good, if not better, than waking up before dawn to go for a jog! Besides, if we were supposed to be going on a run, then why do I smell food being made?

With one last steadying breath, I got up. I suppose I’m already awake, might as well go see what Kodi’s burning in the kitchen.

I grabbed a big hoodie, one of Kodi’s, as I made my way out of the bedroom and towards the kitchen. The bastard made me wake up at an ungodly time, he could deal with me taking one of his hoodies.

The smell of kielbasa being cooked and the sound of music being played drifted down the hall as I drew near the kitchen. It wasn’t long before I could see what was going on; Kodi was humming and dancing in place as he shakily flipped potatoes in the pan like those show-off chefs do on TV.

I took a moment before entering the room to appreciate the sight. I don’t know what I did to deserve this, but boy am I glad to be here. It wasn’t all that long ago that I dreaded having to wake up in the morning and make myself breakfast in what was a soulless kitchen.

But Kodi changed that, he brought life to this otherwise drab apartment.

Thick tendrils of memory wrapped themselves around my heart as I thought of what we had. Of what I can never have again now that I am alone. Alone in the house we bought in hopes of starting a life, a family. A family that will never be as full as it could have been…

A cough. My attention snapped back to the solemn room in front of me, the sea of blurry faces gaze up at me in my silence.

I swallow my feelings, burying them deep in the cradle of tendrils around my heart as I continue, “I am upset, and there is nothing that y’all can do to fix that. You don’t know what it’s like to have someone ripped from you too soon. You may feel like you’ve experienced this pain, but at least you’ve gotten to have a life with the one you love. I don’t have that. I will never have that.”

The stars were beautiful tonight, sparkling up above us without a care. To be fair, what did they have to care about? They were celestial bodies twinkling from their homes millions of miles away.

“What are you thinking about?” Kodi asked me. I turned my head to look at him, only to see him already looking at me.

I spoke before I could think about it, “Home.”

As I spoke he turned onto his side and propped his head up with his hand. “Home?”

From this new position, it looked as if he had a halo of stars. The twinkling lights millions of miles away wreathing Kodi in a soft light. He was breathtaking.

“Home,” I whispered, breathing the words into the universe, “Our home.”

I could see a grin split it’s way across Kodi’s face and he chuckled. “Our home, you say? What about our home?”

What did I mean by our home? We’ve got an apartment together, but I would be hard pressed to say that was our home. Maybe I was thinking about what home we could have, the home we could truly make ours with a family and years of memories. Yeah, maybe that’s what I meant by ‘home’.

I turned to look back up at the stars as I thought. I wasn’t sure how to bring up the ideas I had for our future without upsetting Kodi, and I did not want to see the discomfort cross his face. I took in one last breath before I said, “I want to build a home with you. Buy a little house in the middle of some suburb somewhere and make it our home.”

I could feel the bed of the truck shift beneath me as Kodi laid back down. I don’t know why I’m so nervous, sure Kodi always talked about how we shouldn’t plan too far into the future because of his health but the didn’t mean I couldn’t talk about it, right?

To my surprise, I saw him lift his arm and point to the stars. “You see that constellation there? It’s Horologium, the time-piece. It’s one of the few constellations that does not have a story behind it.”

I wasn’t sure where he was going with this, what does a clock have to do with building a house? I turned to look back at Kodi, only to see that he had tears in his eyes.

“I think that when we get that house,” his voice was thick with emotion as he met my gaze, “and when we adopt some kids of our own, we can tell them that there actually is a story behind the Clock Constellation. We just have to figure out what it is, together.”

He lowered the hand he used to point at the stars, bringing it to cup my face. I love him so much, even though it hurt him he still dreamed of a future with me. I don’t know what I’d do without him.

A moment passes as I try to untangle myself from the past. “I don’t have much else to say. Kodi was a good man, he loved with his whole heart. I loved him with mine. He will be dearly missed, and I know that my anger will fade away into sorrow and pain.” The tense air in the room started to dissipate as I spoke. I knew that people wouldn’t be happy with what I had to say, but it was the truth.

“And as that sorrow and pain comes to live deep in my heart, I will have to learn to live without the one person who gave my life meaning.” It was an abrupt end, but I can feel the pangs in my throat that mean that I am about to cry. I can’t - won’t - cry on this podium in front of the world.

Instead, I swallow that feeling as I make my way back to my seat. There was warmth to my left from someone leaning over, pressing up against my shoulder. I know they mean to comfort me, but it’s all too much right now. All I can think about is the fact that it’s not Kodi.

I know that it’s his mother, I know that she is the one sitting to me left without having to look. I can tell just be smell, her perfume had leeched itself into Kodi’s clothes when we had first met.

This is going to be hard. Up until now, I’ve been running on autopilot; had to call the coroner, set up the funeral, deal with financial accounts, notify banks and businesses that Kodi had passed. But now, now that I have taken the podium and spoke what is on my mind, it is hitting me. Everything has changed. Nothing can go back to how it was.

Finally, in the front row of the funeral home sitting on a shitty metal folding chair with the mother of the love of my life trying to comfort me, I will let myself cry. I can’t hold it in any longer.

Going forward, there is one thing that I know: I would do it all over again if it meant just one more moment as his lover.