What do you say at a friend’s funeral by Erin McGregor

                         ​Ffion Atkinson CC



What do you say at a friend’s funeral

What do you say at a childhood friend’s funeral? What do you say when that friend killed herself and left behind two teenage children, a husband, siblings, parents? What do you say when you see the recent picture of a meth-wrecked grin in the place of teeth that spent much of your teenage-hood caged in braces? 

What do you say when you haven’t seen that friend in fifteen years and the last time you saw her was at a bus stop just after she had her first child, and she reminded you that the time you saw her before that was another five years previous, when you were high as a kite and trying to sell her your jewelry so you could go to the bar? What do you say?

Do you say: “I’m sorry that you suffered”? Do you say: “I hope it’s better now”? Do you say: “rest in peace”? Do you tell her not to worry about those she left behind? That they’ll be okay even though you both know they won’t? 

Do you say: “remember that time you went on a date with a married man you met through a telephone dating service when you were sixteen? And remember how he picked you up from the high school and you guys drove to the edge of town and made out and then he dropped you back off at the park? And remember how you found out his last name and his address and left an anonymous letter in his mailbox for his wife, revealing to her what kind of man she had married and only recently had a baby with?” Do you laugh and say: “wasn’t that crazy?”

Do you say: “remember all the dreams we had when we were kids, crazy dreams about giving birth to fully cooked chickens, dreams about sex with roosters and flies coming out of the ground?” Do you say: “remember that time we ran into each other at some dance club a couple of years after high school and we went out for a smoke in the parking lot and you told me how when you and ______ broke up it was bad, dark, and I said I know that place and you said, no, I mean really bad, like I wanted to fucking kill myself, cut myself, just die for real, and I just nodded and said, yeah, wow, that’s harsh and I chalked it up to drunken drama but maybe it was real, maybe that was just a test drive for the real thing?”

So, what do you say? Do you ask: “did you believe, in the end, in Jesus and heaven and some eternal paradise where all will be united? Did you really believe?” Do you ask: “what were you thinking about in the moment before you stopped thinking altogether?” Do you say: “I hope you were calm, I hope you felt safe, I hope it was a relief”?

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Erin McGregor is an emerging writer based out of St. Albert, Alberta. She has had work published in Glass Buffalo, Northwords Now, and Room. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC."

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