I died in Murfreesboro, Tennesse on June 14, 2009 and, currently, I am watching as my still-living friends and family mourn my passing in the funeral home. I wouldn’t say I had necessarily a bad life – in fact I think I like where my life had gone. I was surrounded by loving family, I was never truly alone, and I had many I could count on. I had a few incidents when I made the wrong choice and did the right thing; things that I have regretted, but I have also did many good things as well.
Things such as helping the homeless, doing simple things for strangers, like volunteering to help with a activity they had a hard time on. I also donated money once a month to places like St. Judes and a shelter for abused children and women. I’d even been a part of Girl Scouts when I was younger, where I had done community services, raised money for other organizations that helped animals and people.
As a child, I was raised to always treat others with kindness and to think of others before myself. I stuck to these morals my mother had helped set up. When my father left my mother, I did not turn to hate him, even when I never saw him again. I had learned to forgive others, and that was what I had done for him. Growing up with only one parent was tough – we always had to worry about running out of food or necessities we needed to live. Even then, I always tried my best to help others, which led to me meeting my husband and the close friends who I could see mourning for me.
I was lucky enough to have all of these loving people as my family members and I was always aware of how many other people don’t have the same luck as I. Even when I had only one parent, I had at least one, while kids – orphans – may never know who their parents are, nor have reliable parental figures to lean on.
I am thankful for the life I have lived and, as I gaze upon those standing before my soul, I am content with what my life had become. When I pass on after I am buried, I will watch my family members as they continue to live their lives without me, waiting for them to join me in the afterlife.
I walk along my body as it is carried out to my newly dug grave. Standing behind my headstone, I watch silently as they lowered my casket into the hole and as it fills with dirt, until the hole was no more. A white light surrounded me and I looked down at my spirit, myself slowly vanishing. I look back up a my family’s faces, taking in their familiar expressions to memory and I whisper gently, “I love you all and I will be waiting.”
I vanish completely in a small gust of wind.