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LAILA
Everywhere I look, fragments of my mother look back at me. Yellow daisies fill the room, cushioned by pockets of baby’s breath. Bright and optimistic, just like she was.
The casket is surrounded by white lilies, the lid sealed closed—another thing she’d asked for.“You gotta leave the people wanting more,”she’d teased.
I didn’t laugh when she first said it, and I’m not laughing now as I cross the narrow stage to the podium.
Arsen told me I didn’t have to say anything if I didn’t want to, but the rest of the day has gone exactly as my mother planned. I don’t want to be the one hang-up. She and Arsen worked out all of the kinks the last few months, leaving me nothing more than a guest—a useless bystander at my own mother’s funeral.
Which is why, when a laminated piece of paper is placed in my hands, I can’t turn it down. I can’t refuse the one thing she asked of me. The one thing that makes me a part of her last act on this planet.
Warm lights drip from the rafters overhead. I can hear the crackle of the giant speakers behind me, playing soft piano music. When I grab the microphone, the sound system squeals. The audience cringes against the noise.
“Sorry,” I mumble, but the microphone is so sensitive that I might as well have shouted. Again, Aunt Lorelei gasps, laying a hand across her heart.
Arsen is waiting in the wings, looking painfully handsome in a black suit and tie. He nods in encouragement. The only reason I can return my gaze to the poem in my hands is because I know, if I leave this stage now, I’ll fall into his arms. I won’t be able to stop myself.
But the moment my eyes pass over the first few words, they start to blur.
“‘Do not stand at my grave and weep,’” I start, my voice wobbling. “‘I am not there, I do not sleep.’”
I remember the first time she read this poem to me, days after she’d been diagnosed with cancer. I cried then, too.
“‘I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond glints on snow.I am the sunlight on ripened grain, I am the gentle autumn rain.’”
She kissed my forehead afterwards and told me to read the poem back to her. I refused. I told her that she wasn’t dead yet. That she was going to beat the cancer, and I’d never need to read it.
“‘When you awaken in the morning’s hush, I am the swift and uplifting rush. Of quiet birds in circled flight, I am the soft stars that shine at night.’”
That was two years ago. Two years I had with her. Two years of laughter and memories that I cling to now with every fiber of my being.
“‘Do not stand at my grave and cry; I am not there. I did not die.’”
Tears stream down my face as I read the last words, but my voice remains surprisingly steady.
The poem is over. I’m supposed to leave the podium now, and for good reason: Mom knew I’d never make it through a eulogy without blubbering.
Maybe she was right.
But knowing her—and the way she knew me—she isn’t surprised when I address my captive audience anyway.
“That was my mother’s favorite poem, and I think I only just realized why. This poem isn’t about death. It’s about life.My mother believed that spirits carry on after our bodies are gone. She was trying to tell me, even now, that she’ll always be here with me.” The crowd dissolves behind my tears. I hold the poem to my heart. “My mother was a remarkable woman. I only hope that I can be half the mother she was.”
Then I walk off the stage…
… and straight into Arsen’s arms.
I don’t mean to. It just happens, exactly the way I knew it would.
He doesn’t say anything. Neither do I. He just holds me until it’s okay for me not to be held anymore. Then he rests his hand on the small of my back and leads me down the aisle towardsthe exit. We walk through a long line of men in suits with dark sunglasses and stony grimaces.
As we pass, one of them steps up. His crew cut is shorn close to his scalp and his cheekbones are gaunt. He pulls off his shades and tucks them into his pocket. “I just wanted to offer my condolences.”
Arsen hems closer to me. “Jasper, now’s not the time?—”
“Jasper?”
He breaks into a toothy grin that’s entirely out of place here. “So he has mentioned me! That’s good to know. It’s very nice to meet you, Laila. I just wish it was under different circumstances.”
