Our Concrete Angel

No child should ever have to go to a funeral for another child. No teenagers either. No child should ever have to go through the pain or suffering of cancer or watch someone else suffer. It’s a tragedy that I never thought could have affected me. Little memories still trickle back to me like rainwater.

It was a Thursday (I never could get the hang of Thursdays). Katrina had been gone barely three days. I remember Jon calling her cell phone during Biology class and the two of us listening to her voicemail—Ms. Zellers, quite the understanding teacher, let us listen.

I had been strong up until that point. I had only cried twice through her entire cancer battle. Once when I was told she had cancer (nearly two years earlier) and twice when I was told it was terminal (two weeks before). When my mother sat me down on my bed, her eyes red from holding back tears, and told me Katrina was gone, I didn’t shed a tear. I tried to, but all emotion had been drained from my system. Too many tears had been discarded in the past few years to make up for it. I guess at that point it hadn’t really hit me. She was gone, but there had been no evidence behind it. I hadn’t seen any signs. Only heard the words.

There were still no tears when I called my friends, but my breath did catch in my throat as I regretfully relayed the news to each of them. I was still too distant to realize what had happened and I felt like I had to be strong for everyone else.

It was the viewing that got me. Open casket. My mom pulled up to Schimunek funeral homes and I can’t remember what she said to me. My eyes were trained on Marlie, walking in with her father, a red rose tightly gripped in her hands. She had been out sick that day, that much I can remember. I ran up to her and hugged her—despite her cold—and we walked in together.

Walking through the hall was a longer trek than I would have anticipated, even if it was only thirty feet or so. We looked in on the room and stood there, waiting and wondering what we should do. Go in? Or stand out here and wait for someone we knew? But being only two-thirty in the afternoon, we were of the first of the Perry Hall High students to arrive.

Then Jon saw us and bounded out of the room with a look of both relief and depression. Trying not to cry, he hugged Marlie, then me. He had been strong through it too; that I remember, as well. He took both our hands and pulled us into the room, practically dragging me into the crowded room filled with muffled voices and darkened figures.

I couldn’t see the casket, and I didn’t want to yet. I didn’t want to have to face it so soon. Luckily, I didn’t have to. Before we made it to the casket, Jon had wheeled Marlie and me over to Mrs. Nina, Mr. Doug, and Katrina’s older sister, Kristen. Only quick hugs and held back tears. I can’t recall any words spoken, save for a ‘hello’ and ‘glad you came’ from them. Marlie handed over Katrina’s Christmas rose with a mumbled voice. “Thank you,” Mrs. Nina replied softly, nodding her head. Mr. Doug forced us a smile and off we went to escape the awkward silence.

If I hadn’t been dragged along, I wouldn’t have gone up to that casket. I would have just as easily preferred to stand back in the crowd of people, commenting on who was here, who wasn’t, how sad we were, and who wasn’t taking it well.

But Jon wouldn’t let me. His grip tightened like a vice around my hand as he yanked me forward, knowing that I didn’t want to do this any more than he did.

Wishing to be somewhere else, we waited behind a small group of Katrina’s relatives who were kneeling beside the casket. I pulled my hand away from Jon and folded my arms across my chest, wanting just a moment of isolation as my eyes wandered everywhere save for the dark wooden casket. Needing the distraction, I kept looking over the figure-skating pictures and family portraits and framed poems. One quick look, I promised myself silently as my eyes traveled back to the coffin. One quick look, a few words and I could go before I lost it.

Breaking me out of my trance, Jon tapped my arm and beckoned me towards the kneeling cushion. There wasn’t enough room on the cushion for the three of us, so I just shook my head and stood there behind Jon and Marlie. I was surprised he let me back out like that.

“She doesn’t look real,” I heard Marlie whisper. Up until that point my eyes had been on the backs of their heads, studying the intricacy of their hairs. Anywhere but the coffin. Marlie’s voice forced me to look up and face the horrible reality.

Pale skin the color of soft snow, of snow that had fallen the day she passed, closed eyes, lips painted peach. A silver dolphin necklace hung from her neck. Her trademark denim bucket hat was a familiar sight to me. Her hands, her hands I remember most of all. Her pale hands, laced over her stomach, didn’t even look real. They looked like wax, comparing this fallen angel to something in a cheap historical museum. And for just one split second I thought that it wasn’t really happening. That she was home, breathing, just resting.

If only.

Allowing the people behind us a chance to see, we backed away quickly. More students came in as the hour passed, our group of three multiplying to about nine or ten or so. We got yelled at for laughing and were asked to leave the room until we could control ourselves, so we stole away into the lounge. We could be loud and laugh and cry or whatever we needed.

We sat at the round table for what seemed like hours, staring silently at the center of the table, all of us reflecting on the scene. Finally, one of us—I can’t recall who, exactly; there were so many of us—broke out into a hysterical fit of laughter. I wasn’t sure why, and no one else seemed to know either, but we all slowly began to smile for what appeared to be the first time in days. Laura and Marlie began to fight over the coffee machine; Jon bought everyone at least a dozen sodas. I still have the soda tab from one of my cans. Can’t seem to get rid of it. We all began to talk of more pleasing things. The good memories.

Field trips with Katrina, winter break, always calling her ‘muddled’, playing video games with her. Any little pleasant memory we could revive, brushing aside the bleak cobwebs and dusting it off to its former golden glory.

That was what we needed. To laugh. The whole week people had been keeping our minds on the negative. Wouldn’t Katrina have wanted people to remember her in a positive light? Not all the bad, but the good. Not the cancer or the hospital, but the parties and movies and New Year’s chocolates and board games.

We were hyenas! The laughter erupted from the lounge carried through to the other room, calling more students to our flock like sheep to the shepherd.

But after an hour or so, a more grueling task awaited us. Going back in there. We thought we’d be better now, with smiles on our faces, but that lasted for barely a minute as we walked back in the viewing room. We stuck together, a large group of us, and sat on the sofas together, reading Katrina’s poetry. She loved to write.
Her poems brought tears to our eyes. Except for me, who couldn’t find any.

My mother came over often to check up on me and I kept my distance when possible, sending her away as fast as I could. I didn’t need her trying to console me when she didn’t understand anything I was going through. My friends, however, did.

Jon went to the casket. He did this multiple times throughout the evening, bringing up people and then going up alone. I bit my lip and watched him lean into the casket on his forearms, an innocent child filled with wonder and confusion. But there was no curiosity here. Only grief. I looked away.

As the night wore on, my mind changed about all this. Around six or so random students came in, claiming to be friends, people who never met her who were talking about her like they were the ones who were there with Katrina during the fight. It made me sick, those people who hadn’t seen her in a year because they didn’t dare take an hour out of their schedules to just visit her in the hospital or even call. I did. The time I spent in the hospital visiting added up to days, maybe even weeks. Phone calls were even longer. And those people had the audacity to claim they were her best friends. They never saw her sick. They never saw her struggle to find enough energy to wave a greeting or speak without falling asleep through her words. They never saw the feeding tube in her stomach or how frail she was—even if she did hide it well. I was impressed by the quantity of visitors, but not the quality.

“I can’t believe you came to both,” Kristen had said to me later as I came into the second viewing. I only nodded and said I wanted to be here.

Jon came to the second one too. He seemed to be doing better than before. Laura came back to this one too. I remember that. She was missing an orchestra concert. I stuck close to her for a bit. I hadn’t seen Helen in a year since she went to a different school. She told me, “I wanted to see you guys again. I just didn’t think it’d be for this.” I had to agree. I had seen my teachers from middle school, old guidance counselors and an old assistant principal who knew our little horde of friends rather well. Any other time I would have been delighted to see them, but not for this reason.

That night was the first time I saw Caroline cry. And to this day that is the only time I’ve ever seen her shed tears for something other than a movie. She desperately clung to her mother and I had to turn away.

Half-hour left. It was time to say goodbye. Up until that point I had been reasonably strong. But the prospect of leaving and saying goodbye, facing all this head on, broke through my defenses. I stood there and shook my head, refusing to go up there. I wasn’t about to say goodbye to Katrina.

“Come on, Katie,” Jon said as my eyes filled with tears. “Your turn.” I ignored him for a few minutes, my eyes on my non-waxy hands. I wouldn’t go up there. I just couldn’t.

But somehow I was able to stand—despite my voiced protests—and trudged up towards the casket, my fingers laced with Jon’s. He tightly squeezed my hand and walked me up. I fell onto the cushion and let Jon speak first. I can’t recall what he said, or even what I said, only that it came out in between sobs.

After two years of fighting cancer, the war was over, taking at least one casualty, leaving others wounded. She was our concrete angel. That must have come up as we spoke. She had been stronger than we could have ever hoped. She was in a better place. I had to keep reminding myself that. She wasn’t suffering anymore.

My goodbyes were said and I backed away, drying my eyes with some tissues.
The rest of the night is mostly a blur to me now. Jon left early for something or other and Laura and I spoke with one of the guidance counselors. Grief counseling. Boy, would that be fun in the next two months.

I do, however, remember reading Psalm 23 in the room. At the end a pastor was giving a blessing, actually trying to keep it non-religious. But he said that so many people know the Twenty-third Psalm even if they aren’t Christian. It was the most uplifting experience of the night. Laura on one side of me, Anysia on the other, everyone in the room reciting the Bible passage. Lutherans, Catholics, Presbyterians, non-denominational, even Hindu. Everyone in the room seemed to know it and said it.

That thought still sticks with me. Psalm 23 and the legacy Katrina left. She had figured out where to lay her ashes so that they’d go all over the world. She was talented, intelligent, amazing singer, writer, great friend, compassionate, and just as crazy as me and some of my friends. But that night I found more than what she left behind; I realized what she had unintentionally taught me. To be the best person I could be in the short amount of time I’m here. I won’t forget her, the lessons she taught me, or the night of the viewing that brought my friends and I closer together.