SERIAL FICTION
Vulnerable Farewells Of The Ones They Loved
Shadows Of Mayday #43: Saying goodbye #2: One by one their loved ones bury the victims
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On the same day of Kaitlyn’s funeral service, Anthony was buried on the farm of his parents in The Free State, one of the nine South African provinces.
The family burial site had been in this location for several generations. The graves of Anthony’s great-grandparents and grandparents were there too. He was the first of his generation who would be buried in the small graveyard on the family farm. His death had devastated his parents.
“This is not how it should be. This isn’t right. Parents shouldn’t outlive their children,” his mother repeated over and over.
Anthony’s two brothers and his sister stood next to the open grave with their spouses and children, as well as Anthony’s wife, his children, and his parents. They had the funeral service in town, in the only church, but have opted for a burial with only the closest family present. The church had been packed with other family, friends of the family, and Anthony’s colleagues.
Cassidy was in the church too, her red swollen eyes hidden behind sunglasses, her head bowed and her face hidden under a hat.
The smell of fresh earth filled the air.
The minister stood at the head of the grave and read a passage from the Bible before he said a prayer. Women and children cried. The men tried to comfort the women, doing their best to hide their own tears.
Anthony’s father had one arm around the shoulders of his wife, the other around the shoulders of Anthony’s wife. They watched as the coffin lowered into the grave. It reached the bottom with a thump.
Anthony’s brothers and father shoveled the fresh earth back into the grave. When they were done, the women and children put flowers on the grave and everyone returned to the farmhouse.
The women dabbed their tears.
The men hugged and comforted them.
As they walked up the stairs, Anthony’s mother mumbled the words again: “Parents should not outlive their children.”
They buried Chris and Sarah in the graves they had bought back when they just got married, had little money, and weren’t thinking about their deaths. It was the way their parents had taught them: to be sensible and prepared for the future. They had laughed when they did it, wondering whether sixty years down the line they would even care where they were laid to rest.
Now, a mere twenty-five years after they bought the graves, the holes for their coffins had been dug the day before. In the nearby funeral home, a handful of people gathered for a brief funeral service for Chris and Sarah.
The couple had always lived sober and sensible, and their funeral service reflected that.
None of their parents attended the funeral service or burial. Only Sarah’s mother was still alive, but she stayed in a nursing home that specialized in dementia. The nurses tried to tell her that her daughter died in a plane crash, to which she replied: “I know no one named Sarah.”
Even when they showed her pictures, she couldn’t remember that she had a daughter. Neither Chris nor Sarah had siblings. The only people who attended their funeral service were their handful of friends and some of their colleagues.
Just like with Harriet and Angie, the bodies of Brian and Sylvia didn’t return home at the same time.
Sylvia’s body arrived back in the Netherlands a month before Brian’s. None of Brian’s family attended Sylvia’s funeral service, simply because they didn’t know who she was. They knew he had died with his girlfriend, but their own grief for Brian’s death didn’t motivate them to look for Sylvia’s family.
Brian and Sylvia had been together for only two months and never got to the phase where they introduced each other to their parents.
Sylvia’s funeral service was beautiful.
Friends of her sang ‘Amazing Grace’ a cappella. Tears appeared in many eyes and jaws clenched to stop the sobbing. Friends spoke with fondness about the wonderful friend Sylvia was and family talked about her beautiful and bubbly nature.
The service brought as many smiles as it did tears.
Everyone paid their last respects, walking by Sylvia’s coffin and saying goodbyes in their own way.
His family attended Brian’s funeral service, but also by his friends in the drug world. They attempted to blend in, but Brian's parents disapproved of their flashy cars, black suits, and arrogant demeanor. Life had obviously hardened these people, and Brian’s parents didn’t understand where their son had met them.
They shrugged and accepted that these strange people came to pay their last respects to their son.
Brian had wanted to be buried.
It happened on a rainy, windy day.
People clung to their umbrellas, which had no purpose as the wind swept the rain against them. Brian’s parents didn’t notice. They cried for their son; cried because they needed to say goodbye; cried because they had to leave him there in the cold, dark grave.
The bodies of Edward and Nora arrived back home on the same day. Their parents had the task of organizing their funeral and did it with the help of Nora’s sisters. Edward was an only child.
On the day of the funeral service, not one empty seat could be found in the funeral home. The parents of Edward and Nora didn’t realize that the couple had so many friends.
Little did they know that everyone in the kink community, who had ever met Edward and Nora, attended the funeral service. Nothing indicated these people had a different lifestyle. No leather clothes, no chains, no clamps, no cuffs. Close observers would have noticed the jewelry that doubled as collars, rings that symbolized submission, or a hint of a tattoo that represented the BDSM symbol. Only insiders knew what to look for and understood what it meant.
Edward and Nora had left a will, in which they stated they wanted to be buried in the same grave. Their parents honored their wishes.
No one claimed Judith’s body in South Africa.
She had no siblings and her parents had long passed away. Judith had neglected friendships and told none of her former friends about her trip to Europe. No one knew she had died in the horrific plane crash.
The authorities contacted Hank after they found information about him in Judith’s house. He refused to talk to them. His new wife knew nothing about the affair he had with Judith, and he didn’t want her to find out. He didn’t see a way to organize Judith’s funeral without revealing the nature of their relationship.
Judith was given a sober state funeral with only a minister and two government officials present.
Cathy’s mom sobbed and wailed during the funeral service. Her husband tried his best to console her, to quiet her down, but to no avail. She was uncontrollable, burying her only child.
Her daughter.
The daughter she had such big plans for. The daughter she wanted to see married to a wealthy man. The daughter she wanted to dress in a designer’s wedding dress. The daughter she had secretly admired because she went her own way, did her own thing, and didn’t rely on her father’s money or connections.
The coffin was barely visible under the flower arrangement her parents had put on the coffin. On the floor around the coffin were the bouquets from other family members, friends of Cathy and from her colleagues.
In the back, at the far edge of a row, sat a young man. Only Cathy’s father knew who he was. The young man didn’t speak to anyone, but had anyone spoken to him, they would have learned that he came from the country Cathy was about to visit when the plane crashed.
He stayed seated when everyone passed by the coffin to pay their last respects. When everyone had left, he stood up and walked to the coffin. He touched it with the tips of his fingers and whispered: “Goodbye, my love, I will always remember you.”
Candy was one of the mutilated victims. A piece of steel from the plane had cut right through her chest towards her shoulder and severed her right arm. The limb had been found and placed in the coffin before it was repatriated back to the Netherlands.
On the day of Candy’s funeral service, her mother knew who her colleagues were. They were less discreet about their clothes than the members of the kink community at the funeral of Edward and Nora.
Candy’s mom didn’t mind. She had met these people in the months while they waited for Candy’s body to come home. They supported her, hugged her when she cried and listened to her when she wanted to talk about Candy.
At least once a week, one of them popped in to check on her. They knew she had to do everything alone now, since Candy’s father had passed away a month after the plane crash. People said he died of a broken heart. He couldn’t bear that his daughter was dead.
Candy’s colleagues sat in the row behind Candy’s mom during the funeral service. Together with her, they were the last to stand at the coffin.
The movie director stood next to Candy’s mom. He looked at the coffin and said: “She was a star when she lived and now she’ll be the brightest star in the sky. A star forever.”
Epilogue
The air crash investigation team worked for months to find the cause of the crash of Flight LU-365.
They listened to the black box and tried to make sense of every recorded word. They investigated each piece of wreckage, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant.
An attack was ruled out, and this killed the rumors that went around in the media for good. They ruled out pilot error. Clearing the pilot’s name gave his family closure. Weather patterns were checked repeatedly, because sometimes freak conditions proved to be the cause of a plane crash.
In the end, they reached the conclusion that the crash probably happened due to a computer malfunction.
The plane had stalled mid-air, but according to the computers and dials in the cockpit, the plane was still flying with no problems. It was clear from the transcript of the black box that the pilots had checked all the necessary meters and dials and found no signs to explain what was happening to the aircraft.
The investigation of the cause of the computer malfunction continued.
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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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