My Turn
by Guylaine Spencer

Until the age of thirty-three, I used to tell people: I don’t do funerals. I had attended only three in my life, all as a child. All were for elderly people. Yours was my first for someone of my own generation.

I’m sorry I was late. You would smile at this—you who were always running late during those last harried months. I got lost in the Montreal cemetery, and had to stop a gardener to ask for directions. When I realized how far it was, I started to run.

The priest was just starting his sermon when I slipped into one of the back pews. F. was up at front with your mother and your brother. About thirty other people were present. I was surprised to see so few—but then I remembered how in the last year your temper exploded so often and drove many friends away. I can still see the smashed picture frames on your living room floor. Your anger was like a suicide bomber, indiscriminate, reckless and deadly. Only the most stubborn of your allies remained.

J.’s painting of you was propped on an easel near the podium in the chapel. Beside that stood a table with a small box containing your ashes. After the priest spoke, F. gave a eulogy. His voice shook as he told us about your passions: friendship, art, fast cars, and travel. He talked about your daring escape from your homeland, your success in building a new life in this foreign land. He managed a smile as he spoke of your strong temper and sense of humor. “Our friendship was like a rollercoaster ride: full of chills and thrills and excitement.”

He told us how he met you. “It was here on Mount Royal. I was ice skating one day on Beaver Pond. He came up to me and asked me—no, told me—that I was going to teach him how to skate. I did. And that’s how we became friends.”

After the funeral, we went back to F.’s apartment for the reception. I rode in the car with P., S., and J. “Why didn’t anyone mention AIDS during the funeral?” J. asked, a little indignant. “We should talk about it whenever we get the chance. And educate people.” She was wearing one of those little red ribbons that made me choke whenever I saw one on a stranger in the streets. My throat ached from months of holding back tears.

S. nodded then said, “Yes, J., but think about his mother. Would she really want to hear that, at her son’s funeral?”

“Ah,” J. replied. “I hadn’t really thought of her.”

At F.’s apartment, our small group sipped wine, looked at photographs of you, and told each other stories. I asked F. what had happened to the cat you’d had in February, before your hospital admission for the lung infection. He told me that he hadn’t been talking to you at the time, so he had no idea. He didn’t say what the quarrel had been about. This was before I’d met your friends, just when I was getting the idea that something was terribly wrong.

I told him about the day you came back to the building after your stay in the psychiatric ward. When I said that I’d been missing you, you smirked and replied, “Yes! Your job must have been so boring without me around.” The story made F. laugh. I didn’t tell him about how we walked down the street arm in arm, you zipped up in your leather jacket on a hot summer day, and how you dashed out of the shadows into the sunlight, licking the warmth like a cat luxuriating in the sun. I didn’t tell him about how you stumbled over the broken debris on the floor of your apartment and how I caught you in my arms—how the frailty of your ribs almost took my breath away. I didn’t tell him about the day when your blue eyes reached like hands inside me and left a permanent print on my heart. Somehow, though, I think F. saw all these scenes replaying in my brain as I remembered them, as clearly as you can see a movie film unrolling. 

There is a time and place where silent stories are shared. And that special zone is called a funeral. That day, I finally understand its purpose.

Guylaine Spencer is enrolled in the creative writing program at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. Her writing has appeared in History Magazine, Our Times, Christian Science Monitor, and other publications.

December 2005