My brother burst through the door. He was already dressed. "Taylor! Why aren't you up yet? We're going to be late!"
"What time is it?"
"Eight thirty! Hurry up!" He tore my sheets away from me and pulled me up by the arms. I pushed him away and stood up.
"What is your problem?"
"What's your's?"
"I'm not the one screaming!"
"Well, I just got grilled by Dad because you decided you wanted to go get stoned with your little fangirl friend."
"Nobody said you had to follow me." I was grabbing my clothes from my closet and a towel for the shower.
"Well, what if I hadn't? Something could have happened to you! You can't just disappear all of the time! Didn't you figure that out the other fucking day? Did you get stoned then, too?"
"Don't act like you're all innocent."
"I'm not the one with the fucking problem."
"What do you know about my problems?" I grated, glaring at him. "You just disregarded me. You always disregard me. I'm just your flighty baby brother. Why don't you and Dad go pat yourselves on the back, okay? I have to get ready." I turned to my bathroom and slammed the door.
"You better get ready quick. We have to rehearse. We're singing at the burial!" He called through the door. I started the shower to drown anything else he had to say to me out. I was a nervous wreck, and putting me in a terrible mood on top of it wasn't helping in the least. Before I got in my shower, I made sure to take my pills. I didn't want another episode like yesterday's. As I swallowed gallons of water I realized that I still felt a little stoned. Or, it was just the pills that made me feel that way. It didn't make a difference, or, I couldn't see how it did. All my life I knew I was better this way. Numb. I was easier to handle when I didn't have to think or feel. That's why they prescribed them to me in the first place, right? Not for me. But for everyone else. The more I was dumbed down, the less anybody needed to worry about me wandering off, or hurting myself, or saying the wrong stupid thing. If I slept all day, if I couldn't feel a thing, they would know, always, where to find me and how to please me. Who were they to tell me I had a problem, anyway? If anything, it was their fault. I had been ten months drug free, and who broke that streak but a doctor who insisted, yet again, that I be medicated. When I leave the bathroom, and we go about our business, I will not be hyper emotional, depressed, or otherwise objectionable. If I close my eyes, then maybe I could smile, too. And isn't that always the goal, at a funeral?
We arrived at the funeral home early to say our last prayers as a family, and then rode in a limousine followed by a hearse to the church. My father, Isaac and I were pall bearers along with two of my cousins and an uncle from my Mom's side. We stood outside and watched as all of our relatives piled into the church, wearing their saddest faces and their darkest blacks. I patted my pocket and felt the square box filled with my consolation. I hadn't smoked yet today, and just the thought of it caused me to ache for a cigarette so bad that I felt delirious. My hands were shaking and I excused myself to go light up before the procession began. I thought seriously about taking another pill, but once the smoke filled my lungs the edges softened. I ran over the first paragraph of my eulogy again, mumbling the words to myself. I was sure that I was going to crumble, or that the words were going to come out all wrong. I was scared, like everyone else around me, of saying my last goodbye. Speaking the words made it all seem so final. And finality was something none of us were prepared for.
I took a deep breath when the hearse pulled up to the main entrance of the church. It was time. The six of us gathered around and without words lifted his casket above our shoulders. The weight of it made me dizzy, and my mind, as we entered the congregation, clicked off all feeling. The march down the center isle, my mother and sisters following close behind, felt like a century. I could feel the eyes on us, and though I looked straight forward, I could see people crying and holding tissues as we walked by. We set the casket on the stand in front of the altar, and filed into the front pew. My mother beside my father, and Isaac next to me with Jessica, my little sister, on my other side. Alexis sat down the row, with my youngest sister in her lap. I could hear my mother crying softly as the opening hymn came to a close. The minister opened the mass.
Throughout the church you could hear crying. There were a number of people that came up to speak for him. Some close friends, a neighbor, one of our cousins. Their words blended together. A mesh of all of the little things and good times that caused neighbors, friends, and cousins to love a person. I couldn't pull them apart from each other, all of the words felt so distant from us. It was as if the words weren't for Zac at all. It was like they were anecdotes of someone else's death. I looked over at my mother, who was staring blankly ahead, leaning dependently on my father who held her close. The longer it went, the more I just wanted it all to end. The funeral, the burial, the reception, everything. I just wanted this grinding endless pain to stop. Saying goodbye shouldn't have to be so long. It's hard enough.
I was nervous. As time ticked by I knew it was coming. All of it was unstoppable. Uncontrollable. I could feel the eyes on me as I approached the podium with a pile of pages. I looked out at the people before me for the first time. I didn't speak for nearly a minute. My audience was dead silent, I was not used to it. I could feel them awaiting a miracle. A spell-binding speech that would have everyone stamping and cheering like in the movies. A speech that would raise the dead from their sleep.
I braved myself to speak. The first time I nearly cried, but the second time, I concentrated on the page in front of me, and found words.
"I don't know what to say." I said. That's how I started. After writing and writing and writing, I couldn't start any other way. "I never really do. That's why I write. Isn't that odd? All I've ever had is due solely to my constant inability to find the right words...
"My Dad approached me three days ago and he asked me to speak. I agreed. I thought, maybe if I could put it into words it would hurt less. I was kind of kidding myself, I guess... The whole task is nothing less than daunting. I thought to myself, 'How is this fair? Three days to sum up a whole life?' After a few hours of writing the same boring set of cliches over and over, I came to realization that I didn't need to sum up anything. So I just wrote the truth. I don't know what to say.
"Five days ago, Isaac and I were in a hospital, playing music for our brother, who wasn't supposed to make it through the night.
"He made it. The sun was rising when he died. It was his last Told You So. He waited just long enough to prove the doctors wrong. He delights in it, I'm sure, as he waits for us in a heaven of chocolate and sleeping all day. I bet it was the first thing he told St. Peter at the pearly gates... that he was, as usual, better than they said he was. His biggest triumph, always, was overcoming hurdles that nobody said he could ever reach. Even if the hurdle of life was too high, he conquered them in his own, small way. As scared as I was... as I am... I don't think he was scared at all. He was afraid of heights. He got sick on boats, and in cars, and on airplanes. He didn't like snakes or spiders or mice. But when it came to matters of the heart, he was always strongest.
"I remember when Zac was born. It's probably one of my very earliest memories, but I can still see it. I was three years old, and my father lifted me over his crib on his first night home and said, 'Taylor, this is your new brother, Zac.' My parents tell me that when I was born, Isaac hated my intrusion in his life, but when Zac was born we both fell in love with him. Mom says we pushed each other around for a few months until we figured out that we could both spend time with him at the same time. I suppose that's how everything really began. Zac was something to us that he was to nobody else. He was our brother. Our best friend. And later on, our colleague and co-worker. We have spent a huge portion of our lives together, the three of us. A larger portion than most siblings and family members. It only made sense, then... that we would be the ones to watch him die." I felt like there were marbles in my mouth, and for a second I couldn't speak to cry. I didn't look up to see the looks on anyone's faces, but I could hear my mother's horrified gasps in my ear as if she were standing next to me.
"Zac was always... He was always so touched by life. He wouldn't let you know it, not for a second... but ever since he was a child he loved the change in the seasons, thunder storms, and ants. It's beyond me, really, why he hated spiders but tolerated ants. He had an ant farm. I thought it was the most unpleasant thing in the world. Just looking at it made my skin crawl, so we made him keep it in the basement. There was something about the tiny network ants developed... and how they lived their lives that just intrigued him to no end. He was always looking into people's lives as if they were his ant farm, even and especially his own. He kept the ants in the basement, silently and constantly working, for about six months. He thought about starting another one when he was about thirteen, but we were never in one place long enough to be interested in an ant farm. Our lives, at that point, were largely similar to that of an ant farm. We were always digging paths behind glass, under the gaze of the many. So maybe, it wasn't necessary to keep a reminder looming around.
"Another one of his favorite hobbies, at a different point in his youth, was to collect bugs from the back yard, which he would put in a peanut butter that Mom and Dad gave him, jar and keep on the back porch. All day he would dig in the back yard for 'grubs' as he called them and at the end of the day he'd have centipedes, worms, salamanders, and other kinds of creatures inside of his jar. He built up an ecosystem with twigs and leaves he took off of the trees and watched it every single day as if something new would happen. It was his most prized possession, as a six year old. I remember, one day, I got mad at him. I don't remember why. But I remember taking that jar and running into the woods with it and dumping it all out. He got so mad at me, and in the days when he was still actually my 'little' brother he couldn't beat me up for it, so instead he just pushed me, and sat on the porch with his empty jar and cried. Even as a kid, I felt terrible. I had ruined something irreplaceable that he loved. I felt like such a monster, but when I went out to talk to him after he cooled down a bit, he forgave me, like he always would.
"We always made it our motto that home is where the family was, so we wouldn't get homesick on the road. But it is true, as anyone whose ever been away from home knows, that there is no place, anywhere on earth, better than your own bed. Zac suffered homesickness the most. He loved history, he loved books, and he absolutely loved to travel... but it took a toll on him. He was very much a homebody in a lot of ways. His favorite ways to cure his inevitable homesickness were some of the best aspects of his personality. He always had a plan of some kind. A game, or just a scheme. When we were locked for 36 hours on a bus, it was he who bought the water balloons at a gas station and started a fight. Or when we were bored in yet another hotel it was he who'd suggest we go roller blading down the halls. You never felt lonely or sad with Zac. Because if you did, he'd pick you up and throw you in the nearest body of water and tickle you until you were forced to laugh. When you were angry, he'd always offer something you could destroy. You always felt wanted, because you always were wanted. No matter the occasion, he always had jokes to tell, and a way to make you feel instantly better. Even on a day like today, I think he'd know exactly what to say to have all of us laughing.
"He was secretly quiet, though. Thoughtful and smart. Even though he was big, boisterous and constantly laughing in the company of everyone else... he was just as easily found quiet in a corner. When we traveled he was inspired, but came to even more greatly appreciate the stillness and silence of home. When we were at home after a tour, the three of us wouldn't speak to anyone or each other for weeks, it seemed. Just to sleep and recover from the pressure of each other's constant company. During one summer we spent in LA, we would take quiet walks on the beach together... but we'd never talk at all. We'd just walk together so that we'd have the comfort of each other's presence. It was the summer Zac met Alexis. I remember that, because he was so in love with her... and has remained so. Every night on the beach, we'd see this woman who sat alone not too far from the lifeguard bench. She was older, but not much older than us... and she was always watching us. Zac found out all sorts of things about her, I have no idea how, but on our walks he would sometimes bring her things like food and trinkets. He did it, he said, because she was sad.
"One day, she just stopped appearing. This disturbed Zac, greatly, but Isaac and I assured him it was nothing to worry about. I remember one night he went out for the whole night waiting for her and came back with nothing to say. The next day I walked into his room and found him crying.
"'What's wrong?' I had asked. I thought that something bad had happened with Alexis, but that was not the case. He handed me a newspaper with a headline that read, 'Unexplained suicide. Woman leaves behind her three children.' Apparently, that woman had lost her husband earlier in the year, and couldn't take the grief. That's what they thought, anyway. She drowned herself in the bath tub.
"That had hurt him so much. I was surprised and taken aback by his compassion, then. He wrote a song for her, later, but didn't talk about it ever again. It was a burden he silently wore. I asked him about it once. Two years later, after he had saved my life. He said that knowing that woman, in whatever context he knew her, made him realize that there was much more to his life, to my life, to anyone's life, that anyone ever knew. He said, 'I was just a kid that she saw every now and again. She didn't even know my name... but no longer seeing her... knowing that her disappearance was indefinite... it affected me, too.'" My words were a blur now, I didn't know if anyone could understand me anymore. "'Nobody,' He said, 'Nobody would know me... if I showed up at her funeral. Nobody would ever know that I knew her at all. I'm not her co-worker. I'm not her friend. I'm not one of her three children. Or her mother. Or her brother or sister. I didn't know her at all, but it hurt me, too, in this really indefinable way. It just makes you realize how much it all really matters.' And then, to me... he said... 'I could never let you die, Taylor. You're too important to too many people.'" With my hands clasped together, I crumbled against the podium. I saw a few people get up to leave, sobbing heavily. I turned my back to the audience for just a moment, and I stared up at the cross above me as I tried to bite back my sobs. The memory of that night on this day hurt more than I had ever imagined it could. The wounds felt fresh. All of them. The new ones. The old ones. It was like every cut I had ever had on my body had opened up at once. I looked to God for strength. I had never felt so helpless at his feet.
I felt Isaac's hand on my shoulder. He had approached the podium. "Taylor... Can you go on?"
A thousand thoughts were swirling through my mind. Terrible realizations that I had to shake out before they overcame me. I nodded slowly, and Isaac hugged me.
"Just take your time." He said, "Here, have a tissue while you're at it." Another wave of tears came, but I willed composure. A glance at his face made me realize he was no better off than I. I hugged him again.
"I'll be okay." I assured him. I took a deep breath, collecting myself before I turned around again. The people were still.
"Zac was level where I never was." I continued into the microphone. "It was he that truly kept the peace in all situations. He was a diplomat who sought harmony and understanding, and on top of it all was able to manage his feeling and thoughts into direct action without doing all of the dancing around and thinking aloud that Isaac and I excel in. He always cut to the chase, and his decisions were always made with steady and solid certainty. He was, in that sense, a true drummer. He kept the pace, even when it wasn't his job to. It was an innate part of his nature. He kept my feet on the ground, and I have he to thank for my life and my livelihood. Our band, our family, and even our friends benefitted from Zac's ability to balance personalities and emotions. I know that he will remain with us, even if he cannot stand beside us and be a part of our world, he will continue, in spirit, to guide us." Every word I said was forced out through tears, I thought about stopping, but I forced myself. I only had a little bit to go.
"Zac's mark on the world will never be forgotten. There are news stations in Tokyo, London, Rio De Janeiro, Mexico City, and New York talking about his passing. Last night, at the wake, over four thousand fans drove and flew from all over the country. There's a part of me that wishes he could see it, the wave he has created - but I know already that it wouldn't surprise him nearly as much as it has struck me. The world is mourning. Everything must change, and I'm so overwhelmed that I can't even begin to think about it... but when I do, I know that I... we... must make a calm transition, and realize that he neither left us behind, nor are we leaving him. We are just accomplishing what he wants for us all: The ability to move on and be happy, even if today happiness seems hopeless to be had.
"A long time ago, when we lost Grandma Lawyer, we wrote a song called 'With You In Your Dreams' that delivers a message of hope from the deceased to those in mourning. And I know that today Zac would like us to remember that message. So for his sake, I would like to close with our words..."
I stepped back from the microphone, and motioned for Isaac to join me as I took a sip of water from a glass I had completely ignored for the entire duration of my speech. I had selected two verses from the song and we had rehearsed them before the ceremonies had begun. Isaac and I approached the mic and with a glance we began singing. About halfway through the first line I realized we were both singing entirely different parts, and I looked at him, dumbfounded, as he stared back at me. My father, in the front row, stifled laughter. Isaac couldn't help it. He laughed out loud, and soon everyone, including myself joined him.
"Ike!" I said, away from the microphone, and scrambled for my pages. "This part. Remember?"
He nodded, wiping tears from his eyes slowly calming his laughter, "I know, I know, as soon as we started singing I realized I was in the wrong spot."
"That was totally him, wasn't it?" I said, my eyes shining toward the heavens. "I was right."
He nodded. "I think so."
I turned toward the microphone again, "Okay. Sorry about that! Let's try this again." Everybody smiled, and once again, we sang. This time, on the same page.
"And though my flesh is gone / I'll still be with you at all times / And although my body's gone / I'll be there to comfort you at all times."
As we sang the words, I could feel my energy draining right out of me, and the room, which had just a few minutes before been filled with laughter, dissolved back into tears. I could feel him there, standing right next to me. If I listened, I could hear the third harmony, and I know it wasn't just my mind. I began to shake with the intensity and tears were streaming uncontrollably from my eyes. We finished the song, and for a second, I remember seeing Isaac's concerned eyes. I took his hand for support, and as we descended the stairs I collapsed.
Isaac told me later that everyone gasped. I had passed out entirely, and he struggled against the dead weight of my body as Dad and the cousins ran to my side. Someone carried me to the back exit of the church, out to fresh air, and when I awoke, my mother was holding a damp paper towel to my forehead. For a moment everyone looked like shadows, and I was disoriented. Then, like lighting, I felt intensely nauseous. I pushed the shadows aside as I crawled away to be sick. This was the third or fourth time such an episode had occurred in the past week, and I was beginning to wonder what was wrong with me. Still, I couldn't help but wonder if Isaac, too, had felt Zac's presence. While we were singing, it was as if he were being poured into my every sense. I wanted to believe that I wasn't crazy, but I became less convinced as everyone surrounded and worried over me.
At the burial, I was ordered to remain seated by my mother. And while Isaac and I sang "Amazing Grace," my father stood beside me to make sure I wouldn't collapse again. This time, I felt empty, our two voices seeming unable to blend just by themselves. But I felt the words, as I always had every time I heard the song. As the family left the roses on the casket, I remember thinking about the thousands of things we had done, and how never, in any of our lives, had we imagined we'd be doing this. As they lowered him into the ground, my mother let out a cry of goodbye. And as we drove away, I stared at the marble gravestone until it was out of sight.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
-- Psalm 23