Personal Narrative: Death At Home

Cozy coffee shops, warm summers, friendly hugs…1.2.3. Disastrous events occur all the time. We are always aware that someone, somewhere in the world, is hurtling forwards into tragedy. Tragic endings leave behind unanswered questions, unfulfilled dreams, unspoken thoughts. Those who love you are left behind, in the dust of your presence, spent to forever remember only your memory, not your existence. Crisp slices of toast, piping hot cups of tea, fresh strawberries…1.2.3. We all tend to forget an end exists. We spend our lives compiling as many happy memories as we can, fully enjoying the good days, deeply mourning the sad ones. When tragedy strikes, only then are we reminded that the end is there, and we scurry and try once again to make the most out of

The remorse grey morning awaited. I never knew one person could have such an impact on my life, as well as everyone else’s lives. I always thought everything was just a beautiful fantasy land where everything was perfect. Waterfall coming out of everyone's eyes filled my imagination of what one man can do to a crowd. I asked myself one question, “Why him, why does it have to be him”. The emotions, pouring out of meand I knew the fall of 2006 was gonna be bad.

Please, oh please let the words come. I sit, and stare, and type, and I backspace. No one will like it. My work is crap. Crap, crap, crap. I crumple my paper watch it fall. The clock taunts with its ticking reminding me of all I want to forget. It creates a beat; a song. Poetic chords and dismal notes ring in my ears. But no, this is thought I should avoid. I am great- better than great. People will love this. Oh please, please, please let them love this. Will my legacy amount to nothing more than abysmal hope? This is the last time I think of it. Oh please don’t let me think of it. The blank page stares at me and I begin to write. One word, then another, then another, and another. You will never know what comes out onto the page until it is

“Oh detective! Trust me I do”, I said while pointing the gun at them. I looked to my left and noticed that Charlotte was here. When did she get here? Then it clicked; she was the one that opened the door for the detectives. The female detective noticed I was starring at Charlotte, so she said “ Mr. Benson, don’t do anything you will regret”. I replied with “it’s too late for that”

An officer poked his head in the room. “Detective, there’s a man here claiming to be her legal guardian.” He hesitated. “He has all the papers necessary. And he demands that all answers that the girl gave you be deleted immediately or he’ll sue for unlawful questioning without a guardian present.”

The holograms should’ve warned us to take a deep breath. Close our eyes. Then again, the holograms should’ve done a lot of things. Like told the truth.

The red flashing lights eluded the oozing thick, pasty, dark crimson liquid, which cascaded from their warm bodies on the floor imprinted dirty with footsteps, creating a puddle children could play in. I tried to look back, but a gust of steam emerged along the hallway, burying each dead body like it was a funeral. It delivered an urgent memo that I had to run, not for pleasure, but for my life. Too many times today have I stared death directly in the face and too many times have I gotten away from the inevitable daunting truth that lurks through the shadows trying to drag and crush me under its weight. I can safely say that compared to running forever, dying doesn’t seem that bad. But I can’t give up, and I’m not going to give up. I need to

Dying without pain and surrounded by loved ones can be a good death. I want to think this can also be a peaceful death, but it's so hard to see the peace in it when I can see the pain in others. Death affects individuals differently. I was able to accept my dad's death, even though I felt it was too soon, he was too young, and he was needed to stay here with us longer. He wanted to die at home and he did. I think his idea of his death would have been sudden, a heart attack or stroke and boom gone just like that, short and painless he’d be gone, but he was wrong. I think dying suddenly, unexpectedly, tragically or violently would not be a good death or peaceful death. The last time my dad was in the hospital, I told him he was either going

I never knew much about death. I didn’t understand what happened to someone. It was like they just disappeared into thin air, never to be heard from again. Almost like a character in one of my mystery novels. Only this time, there was no group of brothers or a crime-solving girl to look for clues and solve the case. It was probably because no one close to me has died when I was old enough to remember it. To this day, I’ve still never lost anyone very close to me.

I always thought that there was a secret, a truth privy only to those who had experienced it, about coping with death. Having never encountered it in my fifteen years of life, death seemed a mystery, and those left in its wake even more so. Rationality being my forte, I determined that they must know something that I didn't, because in my mind every question had an answer and every problem, a solution. I concluded that there must be a secret, some way to bear the toll that death takes and move on. Eventually my mind was filled with other things, more questions needing answers, more problems needing solutions, so I pushed my existential one to the back of my mind. Little did I know, the real answer would find its way to me, as answers always seem to do when you stop looking for them.

I have finally get to get the notebook so that i could read it at the Funeral. Our show couldn’t wait if we wanted to be on broadway we had to out her death on hold and continue the show. Now that the show has been off broadway for a while there's time to plan the funeral. Me and jackson looked through it and it really doesn't make any sense, it’s like she wanted to die.

Slightly pushing you out of the way I run to our mother who’s laying on the kitchen floor with a needle in her arm. She told me that it was her medicine, that if she didn’t have it she would die. How ironic. I never told you because I didn’t want you to pick up on the lie. You were always smarter than me even at a young age.

We all suffer loss of loved ones through death. Loss is inevitable. We never truly get over our losses but we get through it overtime. This is the molding and shaping of the adult we are supposed to become. The day my grandfather passed away I felt I had lost everything in a blink of an eye. He was the only grandparent I had left. Nothing could bring him back. He was gone. I never thought he would have passed away so quickly The Melanoma had won the war. His life was over and so was mine. Overtime I became a man of faith and this only strengthened me as a christian. This was a test of my faith.

After four months of unglamorous international travel followed by four more months of endless, demoralizing doctor’s visits and hospital stays I returned to Miami worse for wear. Eight months without seeing my friends and barely keeping in touch through infrequent phone calls and texts meant that the vague, untested friendships I had made before my semester off had almost completely fizzled. Facing my mortality had subtly affected the way I acted and completely changed my perspective on life; making it difficult to reconnect with old acquaintances and to relate to the few friends I kept throughout my treatment.

Even when I was a young child, I’ve always wanted to know what the inside of a funeral home looks like. Call it a sick fascination, but having the power to see inside of an environment, where death seems to be looming, has always been near and dear to my heart. Disturbing, exciting, repugnant. Those were all words that popped into my mind when I thought about it, and now I finally had the chance to fulfill my wish of seeing what one looks like. I thought it would be bone chilling at the very least, but I never would have anticipated it to be boring.