When I'm Gone

by Emily Bleeker

It was a beautiful funeral. How could it not be? Natalie planned the whole thing, and she always had a knack for entertaining. Luke and Natalie had visited the funeral home together, but Nat did all the work. From the donation basket for the National Cancer Society to the personalized video messages playing on a loop in the foyer,

What they don’t know is this: appearing okay is a lot easier than actually being okay.

It didn’t feel right that he could appear so put together on the outside when he was falling apart on the inside.

Grief seemed to chase away the comfort of sleep, and he longed for a night where he could drift off into a blissfully unaware dreamworld, where life was potentially weird but definitely less paralyzing.

The letter didn’t take away the hollow place inside him that burned like an essential internal organ had been removed, but it did do something else. For the first time in months, he didn’t dread the sun coming up in the morning because there might be more.

Annie had loved Natalie like a sister, yet she was expected to go on with life as though Natalie meant no more to her than the checkout girl at the Wal-Mart.

He’d rather have a woman who wore a size ten but wanted to make love with the lights on, than a size two who hid in the shadows.

He stepped back across the invisible line married people wear around them when spending time with the opposite sex, folded the letter protectively, and put it back in his robe pocket.

How could everyone else find it so simple to slip back into life, the world revolving, businesses opening and closing, buying and selling, when the pillow on the right side of his bed was empty every night?

Jessie flapped a hand at him and twisted her lips up to one side. Natalie used to do something very similar when he teased her.

It always amazed him how something that is broken on the inside can look so perfect on the outside.

It’s the end that marks a beginning, not the first day.” Every time he read it, he couldn’t help thinking she’d been talking about more than school.

“Are you afraid of death, or are you afraid of leaving your family?”