Chapter Two

Sebastian

I stand mortified as the funeral director and his assistant place us where they need us whilst their staff bring the casket up and onto our shoulders.

I'm right at the front with Geoff, leading the others as we take Bethany up the slope that leads through the church doors.

The funeral march has begun, and I can't help but feel that strange and peculiar lump sitting right at the base of my throat that feels almost as if my oesophagus has soda bubbling up from my insides.

It's the need to cry, I presume, and it is thick, yet I push it aside, begging myself not to allow the emotion to take hold of me.

One foot in front of the other, Seb.

Walk your wife down the aisle once more, just as she wished.

You can do this...

Positive self-talk, isn't that what Bethany called such musings to one's self?

The church is full of people, our people.

Friends, family, and even colleagues.

At the very back, acquaintances that we've met over the years that have chosen to attend Bethany's farewell because they truly are the best kind of people you would ever want to meet.

Most smile at me as we pass them by, some even mouth 'I'm so sorry', yet all I can do is concentrate on the task at hand, on putting one foot in front of the other and holding onto the very handle above my left shoulder as if it were her hand.

It's brass in colour and cool to the touch, and it poses as my sensation, one of my five senses that I must keep reminding myself of to prevent the oncoming panic attack that's been sitting ready to explode for the last three weeks.

Sight, sound, smell, touch and taste.

Stupidness if you ask me, but the shrink Dad found for me to visit me gave me these coping mechanisms to use between weekly visits.

Suddenly, the catafalque looms ahead, announcing the ending of our walk, giving me the out I need to run and hold onto my dear Melody. She's there in the front row to the right, watching with open eyes and saddened features.

She's wise beyond her years, that one, again, much as her mother supposedly was.

All six of us come to a stop, standing before the catafalque where the funeral director aids us to slide the casket onto the stand, my hands departing with Bethany, of sorts, for the last time in this lifetime.

"I love you," I whisper as the very end of the casket leaves my fingertips, revealing my task is done. My wife has been delivered to the church as she should have been.

How sick does that sound?

With enthusiasm, I take my pew, grabbing for Melody as I use her petite body as a grounding mechanism whilst the vicar who married us takes his place at the altar before everyone. His gaze reaching me with saddened eyes.

"We are gathered here today to say farewell to Bethany King and to commit her back into the hands of God," he begins as I shut my mind off.

I do my best to mime the following hymn, but find I watch as Melody stares at the casket unwaveringly. I never was much of a churchgoer, and I have never learned such things as hymns and verses of the bible.

Strange how I'm committing my wife back to God when really I do not believe in such a higher power... but she did, and that's all that matters.

"In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit..." The vicar's words strike me as similar to those he used on my wedding day. Our vows replay in my mind as I grasp onto anything that gives me an out of this horrid scene.

How I wish I could jump back to then, experience things with wider eyes, and take in the parts I carelessly missed.

They say hindsight's a bitch, and right now, I believe in nothing less.

How much did I miss? What did I push aside because of a late meeting or early workout?

"Lord our God, you are the source of life. In you, we live and move. Keep us in life and death in your love, and, by your grace, lead us to your kingdom through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord."

"Amen."

I hate to say it, but I space out, missing every damned thing he says. I missed every person speaking about Bethany during their eulogies.

And when it comes to it, when my time has arrived, the last to speak for my darling wife, my mother has to nudge me to get up and read my speech. Reluctantly, I place Melody in her arms once more, walking with my normal gait to the podium that awaits me as if this were merely another business meeting I were attending.

All eyes focus on me, weeping tears and snotty noses staring back at me as the silence splits me in half.

Never have I been as scared as I am at this moment, yet looking down at Melody, seeing her wide eyes looking up at me with expectancy, I know I must read my speech.

"How do you begin to write a eulogy for your wife? And how is it possible to say everything you want to about a person as important as her in a few, very brief minutes?" I ask. "These are the questions that have stuck with me since that horrid diagnosis Beth received. And yes, one would think with the months we had to prepare, knowing this would be the eventuality, that I would have figured that out by now, but alas, I have not."

"The worst goodbye is the one you never thought you'd have to say... It is said, 'There are some people in life that make you laugh a little louder, smile a little bigger and just live a little better.' Beth was definitely one of those people."

"For me, Beth was the wife I always wanted: protective, supportive, bossy at times, incredibly kind, funny, fiercely loyal, and amazingly thoughtful. She was the one person that I could be completely myself with. She was the person who could often figure out what I needed before I even knew. Her love for me always felt endless, and my love for her will always be endless."

"I learned so much from Beth. From the amazing outlook she had through her life, to the strength she had dealing with her physical decline in her last days, to the determination she had not to let her illness rob her of any time she had with us, her family."

"Beth's sense of gratitude for all the good she had in her life; our Melody, me, her husband, our extended family and even friends was something she considered as a life well lived; remarkable was her word to describe what she had been given. Even in the end, as she faced the hardest time of her life, she focused on what she had, not what she was losing."

"It is that sense of gratitude that aided me to try to reflect on what I, too, have and not what I have lost. But Beth was my world, and I struggled to align myself with her thought process. I cannot say I have been quite as successful as Beth was with a positive outlook. My heart is still broken, and it will be forever splintered as we lay her to rest today."

"But I am so grateful for being lucky enough to have had Beth in my life and for all the wonderful memories we shared: the vacations, the road trips, our first home and our only daughter, even her obsession with those late-night rides to the beach to experience the waves in the dead of night. I'll cherish the quiet times by the fire, even her constant ribbing about my driving or my lack of cooking skills."

"My dearest Beth. Bethy," I turn to her, staring at her casket, imagining her sitting upon it, staring back at me. Her smile soft, endearing and gentle.

I say my words directly to her, summoning her out of nowhere. She even brushes her hair behind her ear, a nervous trait she had suffered from for as long as I've known her.

"If I were given a chance at another lifetime, I would choose the same one. I'd choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality,

I'd find you, and I'd choose you always. I'd walk the same path just to see you smile or look at me under your lashes. I'd tickle you just to hear that giggle a little longer. I don't think you know how much you changed my life, my darling... and I want you to know that you were the one; you are and will always be my soul mate."

She wipes away the tears that fall down her cheeks, and for that moment, I really feel her with me. I feel her sorrow, that heart break that is mirrored within me. But I snappy gaze away from her and back to the people waiting eagerly for me to finish.

"It's ironic that you are supposed to write these words to show your love for the one you lost. You know I was a man of very few words, but there's something I want you to know. There are two things I'll never forget, my darling. The way you looked at me for the very first time and the way you looked at me for the very last time. Each holding untold amount of love for me, for your Seb. This life you've given me, the fulfilment you've created within me, is unmatched by nothing and no one. I love you, Beth and that will never change."

I step down then, leaving the podium to grab Melody once more. Abandoning the pieces of paper I had written my words on because they will be no good to me now.

The vicar finishes what needs to be done, committing Beth to God within the church, but my ordeal is not over yet.

Time passes slowly as our nearest and dearest pile out of the church, leaving only after bidding us farewell.

Tears stain the women's faces; men shake my hand... it's gruelling. Yet once they've left, once the public funeral is over, we head out to her plot.

The plot I painstakingly chose ensures that when I die, I can lay to rest with Beth and that our daughter will have a place to rest with us if that is what she wishes.

The nine of us move out with the vicar, following him solemnly as we tread through the graves until we come to stand before the freshly dug dirt that will house Beth's casket.

Things move swiftly, the funereal directors lowering Beth into the ground slowly as the vicar talks.

"In the Name of God, the merciful Father, we commit the body of Bethany King to the peace of her grave."

"From dust you came, to dust you shall return. May you rise with our Christ and live in eternity with our Saviour. Lord, we commit Bethany King back into your arms..."

Dirt is thrown, and flowers are dropped into the grave, yet my mind wanders once again.

Sleep tight, my darling.