(The mother)
They tell you to wear black. They tell you to stand at the door. They tell you to shake hands and say, "Thank you for coming."
They don't tell you how heavy it is.
My daughter wanted to be light. That was her goal. Rule #1: Do Not Be a Burden. She wanted to leave like a whisper, disappearing into the air without disturbing the dust.
But standing here, in this crowded room, I have never felt a heavier burden in my life.
It isn't a burden of annoyance, or a burden of debt. It is the burden of absence.
It feels like I am carrying the entire sky on my shoulders, and the sky is made of lead.
I look at the front of the room.
There is no casket. She didn't want one. She left strict instructions in that horrible, neat letter. Do not spend money on a casket. I do not want to take up space.
So there is just an urn. It is small. Blue. The color of the sweater she was wearing when Mark found her.
It sits on a table surrounded by white lilies.
I hate lilies. They smell like funeral parlors. They smell like the end of things. She loved succulents—quiet, resilient things. But the florist said lilies were "appropriate."
So I am standing here, surrounded by flowers she wouldn't have liked, saying goodbye to a jar of ash that used to be the girl I taught to tie her shoes.
"I'm so sorry for your loss," a woman says. I think it's a neighbor. I don't recognize her through the veil of my tears.
"Thank you," I say.
"She was such a sweet girl. Always smiling."
The mask.
I want to scream. I want to grab this woman by the shoulders and shake her. She wasn't smiling! She was dying! She was bleeding out in front of us for years and we applauded her performance!
But I don't. I just nod.
"Yes," I say. "She was."
Because that is what mothers do. We protect our children. Even when they are gone. I will not let her memory be defined by the darkness that took her. I will let them have the smile, even if it was fake.
I look across the room.
Mark is sitting in the front row.
He hasn't moved in twenty minutes. He is staring at the urn with a look of such profound devastation that it hurts to look at him.
He looks like an old man. His shoulders are slumped. The light is gone from his eyes.
My daughter thought she was saving him. She thought if she left, he would be free. She thought he would find a "whole" woman who loved sunsets.
She was so smart, my girl. She was so brilliant. But she was so stupid.
She didn't understand that love doesn't work like a lease. You can't just break it and move out.
Mark isn't free. He is serving a life sentence of "What if?"
What if I had come over sooner?What if I had noticed the word 'babe'?What if I had loved her harder?
I walk over to him. My legs feel unsteady, like I am walking on the deck of a sinking ship.
I sit down beside him. He flinches, then looks at me. His eyes are red-rimmed and hollow.
"I'm sorry," he whispers. "I tried."
"I know," I say. I take his hand. It is cold. "I know you did."
"She thought she was a burden," he says, his voice cracking. "She wrote it in the letter. Rule Number One."
He laughs, a sharp, wet sound. "She wasn't a burden. She was the anchor. I'm drifting now."
I squeeze his hand.
"Me too," I say.
I look back at the urn.
I think about the days leading up to this. The "good" days. The phone call where she promised to bake a lemon cake.
I realize now that the happiness wasn't a recovery. It was a goodbye gift. She was giving us one last perfect memory to hold onto, like a souvenir from a trip she knew she wasn't coming back from.
It was an act of love. Twisted, broken, sickly love... but love nonetheless.
She wanted to spare us the messy decline. She wanted to spare us the hospital visits and the weeping.
But she didn't realize that the mess is the point.
I would have taken the burden. I would have carried her sadness. I would have sat in the dark with her for a thousand years. I would have let her scream and cry and break every dish in my house if it meant she was still here to do it.
A burden is something you carry. And parents... we are built to carry.
I stand up. It is time to speak.
I walk to the podium. I look out at the sea of black clothes. Friends, family, coworkers. People who knew the mask, and people who knew the ghost.
I unfold the paper in my hand. Not her letter. My own.
"My daughter," I begin, and my voice wavers. I clear my throat. "My daughter left us a list of rules."
A ripple of confusion goes through the room.
"She believed that by leaving, she was fixing something. She believed she was returning borrowed things. She believed she was cleaning up a mess."
I look at the urn.
"But depression is a liar," I say. My voice gets stronger. Anger fuels it. "It told her she was nothing. It told her she was dust."
I gesture to the room. To the weeping friends. To the broken boyfriend. To her father, who has his face buried in his hands.
"Look at this," I say. "This is not nothing. This is love. This is the hole she left behind. And it is vast."
I take a breath.
"She didn't want to be a burden," I say. "So she left us this silence instead. And I am telling you... the silence is so much heavier than the screams."
I look at the back of the room. I see my niece. She is holding a baby. A little girl, only a few months old.
The next generation. Those who come after.
I make a vow, right then and there.
We will not be silent.
We will tell her story. We will talk about the gray days. We will talk about the plastic smiles. We will talk about the monster that lives in the chemistry of the brain, and we will not be ashamed of it.
My daughter died of an illness. Just like cancer. Just like diabetes. And I will not let her final act of erasure succeed.
I will paint her back into the world, one story at a time.
I look at the urn one last time.
You failed, baby, I think, with a fierce, heartbreaking love. You failed Rule Number One.
You are a burden. You are the heaviest, most precious burden of my life.
And I will carry you until the day I die.