The Last Seat(pg.9)

     I said thanks and hung the phone up without hearing an answer, this news brought upon me an existential sigh and grief, Rusty stayed on my mind the remaining of this depressing day, I stared endlessly into the brick mortar that was churning, thinking to myself, we're all turned into stone fossils eventually. Is this it? Is this life's cruel joke, and one-trick show? I kept to myself all day, slow to reply to any questions, just wanted this melancholic day to end. I played out over and over a million scenarios in my head, what if I rode with Rusty and the others, there were six killed in that very car wreck that rocked our small community of church-going and God-fearing people and still haunts this town today. 
     I dreaded burials and funeral homes more than any soul on this earth, I gather no joy in consoling the fragile, mournful, and tormented, for at this juncture of my young life I've only experienced death twice thus far, my dearest grandma and grandpa, may God bless their loving souls. I entered that funeral home alone but came with my cousin Marty, who only knew Rusty a few years, but I had to enter that parlor of death by myself, and as I turned the doorway I saw Rusty in the corner of my eyesight, he was placed in a brown tinted coffin looking like he was playing a practical joke pretending to be dead but brutality soon served up his unwelcome despair as I looked upon his family sitting ten feet away in chairs, I gathered my composure as much as I could without falling apart. I slowly walked toward Rusty's coffin, my heart was racing and my voice was not strong, it seemed forever to get to his coffin, finally there, I knelt down, spoke a few prayers and asked God, why? 
     I came to Rusty's mom first and said, "I'm so sorry," and hugged her.
     She was so consoling to me in return and thanked me for coming, then I had to hug each sister, four in all, and gave my condolences in the saddest display of grief ever, then hugged Rusty's two brothers, and then Rusty's dad for whom I still to this very day call my second father, they were all in shock and in abandoned disbelief, but who wouldn't be?
     I did not attend his funeral the following day, I wanted to, but thought best to work and keep it off my mind, for I too was still in shock and Catholic burials are best for immediate families alone. 

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