THE FUNERAL

THE FUNERAL

Aretha's condition took a turn for the worse and I was called in by the specialist. One look at her and I knew she wasn't going to last the night. He left me alone by her bedside but all I could do was stand and stare.

She was all skin and bones having stopped eating over a month ago. She lay asleep looking deceptively peaceful, but I knew that was only a ruse, for when the pain came, it was like an avalanche. I didn't know when my feet moved me forward and I knelt in front of her and caressed her balding head.

She opened her eyes and in a moment of clarity, smiled at me. "I love you, Alex."

I smiled through the tears in my eyes, happy she had recognized me, but a few seconds later, she closed her eyes and drew her last breath.

"No, no, no, no, you can't leave me, you can't." I got a hold of her and shook her hoping she would wake and tell me 'surprise' like she used to do when she was hale and hearty.

Unfortunately, that never happened.

I broke down completely, sobbing and begging her to wake up and talk to me. That's how the nurses met me, cradling my wife's lifeless body in my arms. After a while, they eventually had to beg me to release her so they could put her in the morgue.

That night I drove all the staff away from the house and locked myself up. I was inconsolable on Aretha's passing. For the next three days, I couldn't eat, neither could I sleep. I drowned myself in vodka and thereafter went about shattering things in the house. I knew what I was doing was wrong but I just couldn't help myself even if I tried.

A week later, Kelly broke into the house and tidied things up. I was like a dummy as I stared at her. She spoke but I could not hear her. She threatened but I was past caring. The pain was so sharp, so rife, I might as well have committed suicide and gone to be with Aretha.

Nothing Kelly did made sense to me. A part of me wandered how she had gotten into the house and even known about Aretha's passing in the first place, but I was too befuddled to ponder on it for long. She brought me food but I couldn't even look at it. I was too hurt, too pained, and too empty to think or function.

The love of my life had left me and all I wanted to do was die.

Kelly became my shadow. She didn't let me out of her sight. I guess she was scared I would kill myself. I almost did.

One day she coerced me to shave, because, and in her own words; I looked like a cave man. But when I stood in front of the mirror with the shaving stick in my hand, I had this sudden urge to put it to my throat and draw it across my skin from one end to another.

And I did.

Till this day, I have a red puckered scar right underneath my throat as a testament to that day.

Perhaps, Kelly couldn't stand my moping any longer because she sat me down one day to talk to me about Aretha's burial, at least she tried to. All I did was stare straight ahead into space. I didn't hear a lick of what she said. The only thing I remembered was her sigh and her telling me to nod if it was okay.

Funny, I don't remember the question she asked, still, I nodded.

And that's how days later, I found myself staring down at the yawning black hole a few paces in front of me with an already prepared speech in my hand.

As I read, my mind began to play out scenes from years before.

"I had just come from school, tired and hungry, coupled with the fact that my baseball game hadn't gone well. I was about opening the wicket gate to walk into the house when from the corner of my eyes I saw you. A sun kissed goddess with long legs and short kinky Afro hair.  My hunger was forgotten momentarily as I trailed you with my eyes. You walked into the house directly opposite mine, blissfully unaware that Cupid had just shot me with his love arrow.

I trailed you everywhere and found out you were in the same high school as mine. You were actually a new student. I summoned the courage to approach you and begged you to tell me your name. You smiled, that lop-sided smile of yours that showcased your dimples to perfection. I knew that day I would make you my wife."

Tears filled my eyes and I struggled to blink them away. I looked up at the blinding sun and gathered the strength I needed. I felt Aretha's spirit was near, urging me and giving me the courage to continue so I went on reading.

"With nothing but a few cents to my name and a big dream, we walked down the aisle a few years later. When I saw you strutting towards me in your peacock yellow wedding dress, defying the norm of wearing a white wedding dress, it had cracked me up. I knew I had made the right decision to marry you."

"Baby, you brought me luck. After graduating with double honors in physiology and pharmacology, you coerced me to get a lab as a startup for my dream. Even then, you believed in me. You said I had stumbled on a cure, a cure to save the world and rid it once and for all of the debilitating cancer disease. You even went out on a limb for me by giving me your hard-earned savings. Savings you had judiciously amassed by working day and night jobs. And when I finally got a patent for the drug, you were beyond proud of me. Heck, you were even more proud of me than my own mother."

I was silent once again as I remembered how I had come home late to see the devastating report that changed everything. I felt my bodyguards behind me move back respectfully as they tried to give me some privacy.

I looked down at the paper and sighed because I still had some more to say to her.

"I just never knew that one day you would fall under this same disease I was trying to get rid of. If only you had fought hard, baby. If only you had fought and waited for me to actualize the last chemicals. If only you could have just held on, but it was too late. Too late for you."

"Someone once said we all have a six feet hole waiting for us in the ground. That person hit the nail on the head."

I shook my head in misery as tears filled my eyes.

"You weren't supposed to die, at least not just yet. You weren't supposed to go at such a tender age of just twenty eight. You were supposed to stay and give birth to our kids. You were supposed to stay so I could love and cherish you like I had always done, up till the very last minute. You were meant to grow old with me, to watch our kids grow into adults and let them do the looking after of us."

"Alas! You've gone to a place where I can't reach you, can't hold you, can't be with you, can't love you like I desperately want to."

My knees buckled and I found myself slumping. Had it not been for strong hands of my bodyguards that held me on either side, I probably would have joined Aretha in the ground they were presently lowering her body into.

A flash suddenly went off in my face, momentarily blinding me. I looked up to see several camera men jostling for space. My heart sank. I knew my face would be splashed all over the newspapers the next day.

I looked to my two trusted bodyguards standing alert beside me. "Get me out of here."

"Yes, boss." They guided me towards where my car was parked, but I was shocked to see it was already surrounded by paparazzi. I would never make it inside without virtually being eaten alive by them.

"Change of plans, boss, please follow me." Hugo, the one on the right said to me.

He removed the baseball hat on his head and put it on mine. I understood it was to disguise me, and it did the trick when I was told to walk away from them and past my car.

I did just that and the paparazzi did not follow me.

Once I settled inside a cab, a sob caught in my throat and despair crawled into my chest.

My wife was gone and I would never see her again in this life.

Loneliness and despair took their turn on me as I wept.