By: Cory Rudolf (2005)

You fell without a warning,
on the cold and misty earth.
Many were left in mourning
for you left us barely living a half-century.

I, along with others, was forced to bid you premature farewells.
“Goodbye,” we said. “Goodbye,” we cried.
I shed very few tears, the night I heard the news,
coming home from having a blast, only to hear that you had died.

I rejected the pain from entry,
as the rest of my family wept.
Defying God seemed to be my only safe haven,
“Why this!?” I pleaded. “Why now!?” I begged.

The decisions were up to me
as my brother was far from capable
“I choose this funerary casket!”
“I choose this graveyard headstone!”

I didn’t really care.
It isn’t like it matters anyway.
You are gone for good.
Funerals are only for the surviving to grieve.

I stood in the line
while being bombarded with people who “knew” you.
“He was a good man,” they remembered.
“Amazing!” I thought.
“He went to ‘Nam with me!” they said.
“AWESOME! Why don’t you die with him, too!” I thought.

Midway through the viewing, I escaped for some coffee (this was the beginning of my insomnia. How ironic: someone gets to sleep forever, while I get to rarely sleep).
I was sick of the people, sick of the company.
They didn’t understand “how hard this must be.”
They didn’t truly know “what a great man he was.”

The following day was the time for the burial,
leaving the family one final time to cry over the lifeless corpse.
I was left alone and I stared and thought:
“This is not the father I knew. No glasses. No mustache.”
You didn’t look like “you.”

I wept for the “first time,” rather than the instantaneous shock.
I would never see you again.
My brother and I told my aunt that you didn’t look like you.
I begged for them to bury you with glasses on your face.
My plea was answered.

The mass began, and it was truly horrible.
My brother’s friends came to Indiana from Ohio.
My friends stayed in Ohio, only for me to realize I didn’t have any friends
(which is a horrible thing to add on to a funeral).

Then you fell into the earth for a second time.
I had some awesome courtside seats, closer than Spike Lee at the Knicks‘ games.
The priest whispered some meaningless nothings,
then the three decorated soldiers shot seven painful blasts into the morning sky:
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

The soldiers gave me a folded flag, with an empty bullet inside.
“This is great! My dad dies and I get a flag and an empty bullet. At least keep the bullet intact so I could at least pop myself in the head to rid myself of the pain.”
The shiny black car drove us back to the funeral home,
as cars along the road stopped to pay their respects…like they even know.

We arrived back at my aunts, and I looked over to see my grandmother.
My grandmother, this beautiful, wonderful, perfect woman, was bawling.
What an awful, broken-down sight.
This should not have happened.
I blamed God for this poor, strange mishap.

I’ve seen The Lion King; I’ve seen Bambi.
The parent is SUPPOSED to die before the child.
In this case, the opposite happened.
I realized that day that my grandmother is the strongest person I have ever met,
and in that sense, my hero.

Cut to five years later:
I am still battling from sleep deprivation.
I still spend nights in waking tears at your haunting memory.
I realize, nonetheless, that it didn’t happen for a reason, as every “believer” believed.
It just happened.

No more nights at the movie theater watching funny films with my father;
No more camping trips filled with hot dogs, s’mores, and ghost stories around the fire;
No more rainy nights sitting in lawn chairs on the porch telling stories and listening to the rain pattering on the thin roof;
No more racecar races that I never seemed to like (yet I’d give the world to watch another race with you);
No more visiting the old abandoned graveyard with the dates all marked in the 18th and 19th century and looking at the graves, wondering of the lives the people led;
No more trips to Mounds Park taking walks and watching the leaves turn to red, yellow, and orange;
No more watching the Colts on the television or in person, I am left to do that on my own;
No more having Jeff and I gripe at you for picking another bad movie at the movie rental store; you never were good at choosing (remember Signs of Life?);
No more having my brother and I yell at you to take out that cigarette and never light it up again.
If only you would have listened to us, none of this may have happened.

You never got to see me start my first Varsity game of football;
The time I had five knockdowns, despite having a severely sprained wrist;
You never watched me act in the high school plays, even though I acknowledge that my talent comes from you;
You never watched me graduate from high school with honors, despite the fact that the brains aren’t exactly from you.

You will never watch me marry;
You will never watch me have a family;
I think you are the only reason I want one so bad;
I want to promise to you, in some sense, that I am capable;
I will never let my kids, my wife, my family down;
I will love them with all my heart;
Your absence will force me to keep my promise to you.

You’ll be gone forever.
There’s nothing much else I can do.
I find it pointless to visit your gravesite.
You aren’t there.
You aren’t really anywhere,
except in my heart, in my brother’s heart, in my family’s heart, and even in that “cool guy you went to ‘Nam with”’s heart.