To die?

What is it like to be dead?
Have you ever wandered how you would die, or how your friends would react? What your funeral would be like, or who would love or respect you enough to show up at your funeral? Well my best friend and I have. This topic randomly came up one night when she was sleeping over my house. She had just gotten into a fight with a really close guy friend of hers, over the phone, and was really upset about it. They had previously dated but are now almost like brother and sister. This had not been their first fight, not at all. It seems that they are fighting and arguing every time she is with me. They always seem to get over the fights quickly, though, but the time in between fights is not long lasted.
But anyway back to the conversation we had. It could not have been more than three weeks ago that she was over my house and on her phone talking to her friend Cody. Well, it was not something that you could consider talking; they were more like yelling at each other, but at a normal volume, that only lasted until Tammy started crying because she was so upset and stressed out. This seemed to aggravate Cody, but he got the message and chilled out slightly. After they got off the phone, like twenty minutes later my sister and her friends had gotten their and were sitting in the room with us.
I could tell that Tammy was still very upset about her encounter with Cody because her eyes were still glassy with tears. She asked me what I think she should do about Cody; my reply was to let him go and see if he went back to her. Her reaction could have been predicted by anyone.
“I wish I could, but I can’t bring myself to let him go because what if he doesn’t come back to me?” replied Tammy, barely audible because she was starting to cry again, “I don’t know what I would do if he died, like I don’t even think I would be able to go to his funeral because I would be a mental wreck.”
Although I knew she would be a mental wreck if anything happened to Cody, I knew if she didn’t go to his funeral then she would regret it the rest of her life.
“Tammy, believe me, if anything was to happen to Cody, God forbid, but if anything was to happen, I would bring you there myself, because I know you would regret not going the rest of your life. No matter how mad you were at him, you would never not be able to go to Cody’s funeral,” were the only words that I could formulate in my head to say to her at the time. Just the thought of him dying or anyone dying for that matter, and lying lifeless in a box awaiting the burial into the six foot deep grave, made me very depressed. Needless to say after this conversation we were not in the greatest mood, neither was my sister or her friends.
So there were five depressed girls sitting in a room, on a fold out couch bed doing nothing. So we went down stairs and raided the cabinets… and what did we find? A bag of Hershey kisses. But not just any bag of Hershey kisses, the little white flags said different things on them, rather then just the original that say “Hershey Kiss” on them. No, these said sayings such as “Ouch,” “I like you,” “I miss recess,” “You love me,” and “Big Hugs.” So we brought the bag of those and the bag of M&Ms back upstairs to the family room where we were sleeping.
For the next hour to hour and a half we sat there and just ate them and threw M&Ms at each other trying to catch them in our mouths. After about the first three minutes the depressed mood had passed and we were in a happy, spastic mood because of the chocolate consumption, and the amount of sugar that was going into our bodies. We were laughing at things that were not funny, and were just not being ourselves. Then we crashed. Our sugar highs lasted for that hour to hour and a half that we enjoyed the chocolate, but after we had stopped, we were done. We shut the lights off, talked for a little while, and then went to bed around one o’clock in the morning.
* * *
The next morning I couldn’t wake up. It was the weirdest feeling I had ever experienced. It was like someone or something had locked my eyelids shut, and immobilized my body. But I realized that when I sat up I was no longer part of my body. I was like a ghost. I was transparent, but not completely, the outline of my hands, legs, and body were visible to me, but when I looked at my reflection, or where my reflection would be, nothing was looking back at me. I went into panic mode, I tried waking up Tammy, my sister, and her friends… none of them moved, or even acknowledged the fact that I was there.
I got up and ran downstairs to the main level of my house, and then up a different flight of stairs leading to my parents, mine, and my sister’s bedrooms. I reached for the door knob of my parent’s room, but my hand just went right through the door. So I attempted something that I never imagined doing, I walked through the solid wood door, and ended up on the other side, with no problem.
My goal in going into my parent’s room was not to see if my parents could see me, or feel my presence, but if my dog, Spike, could. He was passed out in his porta-crib at the foot of my parent’s bed. I slowly walked over to him, and rested my hand on him, making sure not to let my hand go through him. I noticed that I could no longer feel his soft fur or anything at all.
When Spike didn’t notice that I was there, it started to freak me out even more. I ran out the door, down the flight of stairs, and back up to the family room, where I sat next to my body, and waited for everyone to wake up and notice my lifeless body, lying on the bed, apparently asleep, but for longer then anyone knew.
As time passed I became bored, I waited a total of two hours before Tammy woke up and found me. She had tried waking me up to say that she had to get ready to go because she had work, but when I didn’t wake up she put her hand in front of my mouth to see if I was breathing. When she didn’t feel anything she went into shock, her reaction was quiet, she didn’t scream, nor did she cry. She just sat there. Confused. Lost. Then she woke up my sister.
My sister didn’t know what to do. She, like Tammy was confused, however she did cry. She broke down; this made Tammy start to cry too. The combined sound of them crying woke up Nicole and Emily. When they woke up they just stared blankly at Tammy and Melissa. They asked why they were crying.
The answer was not understandable, because they were talking through tears. The only thing that Nicole and Emily understood was Melissa pointing at my lifeless body. They didn’t believe my sister or Tammy. They thought that it was a joke, and just giggled stupidly, like it was no big deal. Then Melissa got her voice together enough to say, “I’m not kidding, she died.” Nicole, still not believing climbed on the bed between Melissa, Tammy, and me, and tried to get a pulse, when that attempt failed, she tried waking me up. When she failed at that too, she started freaking out. She just started talking extremely fast, so that no one could understand her, and then she started to tear up. Emily didn’t know what to do. She sat there in shock, trying not to cry, but failed in that attempt.
Melissa slowly made her way downstairs to tell my parents of my death, but only made it a few steps, and then she fell. I walked over, and helped her up, even though she couldn’t see or feel me, I felt it necessary that I help her. I followed her down the stairs and into the kitchen. Where my parents were standing talking about a family trip we were supposed to go on in the summer. When she walked into the kitchen balling her eyes out my parents just stopped what they were doing, and stared at her. They asked her what was wrong, but she could not bring herself to say. So she just cried even more. She just turned around and walked back up the stairs to the family room. My parents being interested followed. They knew they were not going to get an answer out of her so they just walked up the stairs behind her. And I followed a few steps behind them.
When we were back in the family room, I took my seat next to my body. My parents still were clueless to why everyone was crying until they saw that I was not part of that group. I was still lying on the bed, motionless as if asleep. My parents put everything together, and then like everyone else, checked to see if I was faking it, or if I had really passed on. When they found out that I was no longer living, they began to cry. I didn’t think my dad could cry as much as he did. I had never seen him actually cry, except at that moment. My mom was almost as bad as my sister was. I had seen her cry before, but not like this. She was in shock, and didn’t believe that this had happened.
I was amused by how everyone was reacting; I had wandered what would happen if I died. Of course I didn’t expect it to happen when I was so young. I planned on living until I was old, and had gray hair, but at that moment I was not too upset about my lost dreams. I was more concerned with who would go to my funeral. There were a few people that I had met camping that I never got to see again after I met them, and I want them to go so I could see them, even if they couldn’t see me alive. But I doubt my parents would be able to know that I wanted those people to be there.
* * *
It was the day of my wake and funeral. Two days after I had moved on to this ghostly stage. I had seen my parents cry, I had seen them skip work because they were too depressed, and I had seen my sister stay home from school. This kind of surprised me because she and I fight constantly. We just recently started to get along, and were now almost friends, but we still fought over stupid little things that didn’t matter. So in me dying it brought her to appreciate me more, even though I thought it was too late.
My wake was an open casket, which I feel like is better, because I know personally if I can’t see the person then I don’t believe they are there. I was dressed in my Jr. Prom dress, that I didn’t get to wear, and my make up was done as if I was ready to go to the dance right then and there.
My parents had spread the news to it seemed like everyone in my family, people that I hadn’t seen in years were there. Also the news got back to the school systems. There was an announcement about it saying when the wake and funeral was, and that I had died, even though no one knew the cause of my death.
All of my friends, previous teachers, most of my classmates, and some random people went to the wake. Some people were crying, some were trying not to, and some were being strong for the people that couldn’t keep it together. I was walking around the room, seeing who was there, who was talking to whom, and people’s reactions, when I saw a kid walk in, I recognized him slightly, but not completely. I heard him say his name was Matt, and he was wearing a T-Shirt and a hat that said Fox on it, and I knew it was Matt from a campground that I had gone to. He was someone that I hadn’t seen in almost five years, but I had talked to him online from time to time. He had grown up nicely, and for the rest of my wake, I followed him around.
After the wake was the funeral. I followed Matt to the cemetery which was right outside the funeral home, and went to follow him to a seat, but I couldn’t. My body was being pulled up to the alter, where my casket was being brought. I couldn’t force myself to stay where I was. I didn’t want to leave Matt, or anyone else for that matter. It hadn’t really hit me that I had died until that moment. When I was being pulled away from my life. Before I realized it I was at the alter, next to my parents. I looked at them, and they looked through me, down at my body, which lied lifeless in the wooden box. I kissed my mom, dad, and sister on the cheek, and then I was sucked into the casket like a vacuum. It was like I was supposed to die along with my body. But I didn’t want to. The box wouldn’t let me escape. It was as if I was solid again. I found myself kicking and screaming trying to get out of the locked box.
* * *
The next thing I noticed was someone calling my name, they were telling me to wake up. I felt someone moving my body trying to get me to stop trying to kick them off the bed. I opened my eyes, and saw the light of the sun shining in the big room. I looked over to my left, and there was Tammy, Melissa, Nicole, and Emily, sitting there, staring blankly at me. A big sigh of relief came to me when I looked at my body, and was able to see that I was there, and was able to sit up without leaving part of me behind. They asked me what was wrong, and the only things I could come up with to say was, “I guess I shouldn’t eat Hershey Kisses before bed,” and that I told my sister that I loved her, because I know that I don’t say that to her as often as I probably should.