SERIAL FICTION

This Is The Last Moment To Say Their Goodbye

Shadows Of Mayday #42: Saying goodbye #1: One by one their loved ones bury the victims

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In the Netherlands, the four friends — Soraya, Veronica, Madison and Alison — were buried on the same day, next to each other. Their husbands opted to have one shared funeral service because of the friendship of the four women.

They wanted them to be as united in death as they were in life.

The funeral service couldn’t be done at the funeral home. There wasn’t a room big enough to accommodate the family, friends and acquaintances of the four women.

The husbands chose to have the funeral service in the theater of the local high school. It was big enough to house 500 people and on the day of the funeral service, not one seat stayed unoccupied.

Family came from all over the country. Members of Soraya’s family attended the funeral from Brazil. The service lasted longer than a normal funeral service because of speeches from the husbands, spokespeople of charity organizations and other friends or family members.

Many tears flowed that day.

Soraya, Veronica, Madison and Alison were prominent figures in their town and for one day this town stood still, celebrating their lives and bringing them to their last resting place.

At the graveyard, the four coffins stood next to each other, each resting on the bands stretched across an open grave. Family members gathered around the four coffins, standing close to the coffin of their own loved one.

Simultaneously, the coffins lowered into the ground. Once the closest family had left, people walked by all four of the open graves. Rose petals in four different colors were thrown into the graves and onto the coffins.

People paid their last respects before they went home or to the funeral room at the entrance of the graveyard. There they spent time with the families, comforting them and talking about the four women who died in the horrible plane crash.

On the same day of the funeral service of the four friends, the children, grandchildren and friends of Joe and Mattie sat in a different the funeral home.

Soft music played. Soon, the service preceding the cremation of Joe and Mattie would start.

Even though it had been two months since the plane crash, the families’ sorrow was still mixed with disbelief. None of them understood the cruel blow fate had dealt their parents.

Mattie and Joe were so happy together. They had been blessed to have a second true love in their lives, only for it to be cut short in such an abrupt and cruel way.

The words spoken at their service reflected the disbelief and their sadness. People smiled and wiped away tears when the children of Joe and Mattie brought up anecdotes of their parents. The children pledged to their deceased parents they would live on as one family, as their parents intended them to be.

Music that played in-between the speeches were the favorite pieces of Joe and Mattie — some from their time together and some from before they met.

The children, grandchildren, and friends sobbed as they walked by the coffins to say their last goodbyes. Some of them stood still for a short while, bowed their heads, and moved on. Others touched the coffins as if to touch their father or mother for one last time.

The two coffins disappeared into the floor, to the basement below, the moment after the last people had left the room.

In South Africa, a group of people stood around an open grave with Table Mountain watching over them. Two coffins stood next to each other, ready to be lowered into the double grave. Kim and Lora were being buried in the same grave. Their parents had discussed this even before their bodies returned to South Africa. They believed this was what the two inseparable young women would have opted for.

Because of a drizzle, people grouped together under umbrellas. The parents of Kim and Lora were quiet. They had no more tears to cry.

Fellow students of the two young women attended the funeral too. Some of them knew Kim and Lora from high school and others had attended the same university as the two deceased women. Both fathers spoke a couple of words about their daughters.

“They were always together,” Lora’s father spoke, “which was a good thing because they could have left behind a trail of broken hearts.”

His voice broke when he spoke these words.

People smiled and wiped tears from their cheeks.

Everyone knew how close Kim and Lora had been. No one suspected exactly how close. Kim and Lora had done a good job of keeping their lesbian relationship a secret. The pastor said a last prayer at the side of the grave and each person present silently said their last goodbyes.

People left, and only the parents stayed behind at the grave.

Silent.

Each with their own thoughts.

They held onto their faith in God, believing that Kim and Lora had completed their work on earth and God needed them at His side.

The funerals of Harriet and Angie happened on different days.

Angie’s body returned home about three months after the crash. Angie’s parents had learned their daughter was pregnant when she died, but they had no idea who the father was. Their grief overshadowed their shock when they heard about the pregnancy.

Fellow students of Harriet and Angie attended the funeral.

The young man who raped Angie was also present. He was a shadow of what he was on the night of the rape. He had lost weight, had dark circles around his eyes, and barely dared to look anyone in the eye.

The young student was ashamed of what he had done and wished he had apologized to Angie, even though that wouldn’t have erased his actions. He had liked her a lot and when he sobered up the morning after he had forced her to have sex, shame kept him from going to her. He constantly put it off; telling himself he would do it the next day and now it was too late.

Too late, forever.

A month after the cremation of Angie, her ashes were strewn out on the beach, close to the spot where the rape happened several months before.

Harriet’s body was one of the last to be repatriated back to her home country.

Two months after they had buried their own daughter, Angie’s family attended a funeral service again, this time that of Harriet.

Just like Angie, Harriet would be cremated. Her parents thought this was what she would have preferred. Preferences had never been discussed when she was still alive. Their parents hadn’t expected their daughter to die before they did.

Harriet’s lecturer was at her funeral service too. Even though it was five months after the crash and after he had seen her for the last time, he still missed her every day.

They had not only been lovers.

They were also best friends.

He didn’t expect to ever find a woman as special as Harriet was. Harriet’s parents had never met him. They didn’t even know of his existence. He sat alone and talked to no one, isolated in his grief.

Kaitlyn’s body came back to the Netherlands four months after the crash.

Her husband was incapable of organizing her funeral. He broke down a month after the plane crash and still resided in a psychiatric institution in a near catatonic state.

Kaitlyn’s husband couldn’t forgive himself for letting her go. He believed she would have left him; that she wanted a divorce. He chastised himself that he should have fought harder to save their marriage. He shouldn’t have been so angry with her. She had only tried to rekindle their marriage. He should have listened to her, should have understood that. He believed that if he had been open to her suggestions, she would not have gone to South Africa and would not have died.

His thoughts and grief made him withdraw from everyone around him until Kaitlyn’s brother took over and had him admitted to the hospital. From there, they transferred him to the psychiatric institution.

Kaitlyn’s children stayed with her brother, who also took care of the arrangements for her funeral service. He tried to talk to Kaitlyn’s husband about whether his sister wanted to be buried or cremated, but in the end, he had to decide. He opted for a cremation, hoping that his sister thought about it the same way he did.

Friends, family, and colleagues paid their last respects as they walked past the coffin and greeted Kaitlyn one last time.

One man stopped by the coffin and stood there longer than anyone else had.

No one knew who he was.

No one heard him whisper the words: “Farewell, my love, my soul mate.”

Continued: Shadows Of Mayday #43

Find all chapters here.

This story is a work of fiction, and the author’s tribute to all victims of air crashes. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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