My best friend committed suicide.  He had told me that he wanted giant Casablanca lilies at his funeral.  He wanted to be buried in upstate NY with the rest of his (adoptive) family.  He said he definitely did not want to be cremated.  I knew all this because we would talk about what kind of funeral we wanted because we were both emo before emo was a word.  I had attempted suicide many times.  He never did until he became addicted to heroin.  He started using at 33.  Fucking stupid.  He couldn’t take it anymore.  He took a lethal dose.  One of those “If I live, I live.  If I die, well then I die.”  He died.  I told his mother his final wishes.

 
She was a fucking piece of work.  She was a neurological nurse that believed depression was bullshit.  She adopted Joe to save her marriage.  The marriage failed.  I became his surrogate mother at about age 14.  We were the same age.  I took care of him off and on for most of his life.

First thing she did was come get his stuff from my house.  She wanted to know where all the things he had collected were.  I told her he sold them to support his addiction.  She thought I stole them. She had an open casket funeral even though he had been in the morgue for over a week.  She said to me “Isn’t wonderful how they filled in his cheeks and made him look so good.”  I almost laughed but I held it. She ordered five lilies for Joe and hundreds of roses for herself.  She had a Catholic priest officiate.  Joe was gay.  The priest said something about carrying a handbasket to God – it made absolutely no sense.  He could have been reciting Dr. Suess.  I had made a tape of all of Joe’s favorite music. Morrissey, Madonna, REM, Donna Summer and many more were warbling over the entire proceeding.  I walked out.

 
 

I sat in the lobby laughing hysterically. A couple teary eyed friends came to check on me. I was like “Are you kidding me?  This is the most insanely retarded funeral in the world.”  People thought I was having one of those inappropriate reactions like some people do. Laugh. Not cry.

All I could think that Joe would have been laughing his ass off too. 

 
 

His mom then promptly had him cremated and told me he was coming home to live with her for a while.  I asked “What about NY?”  She said “The ground is too frozen to dig a grave.” WTF!  First of all you cremated him and second of all we don’t dig graves with shovels anymore. I didn’t say anything.  All I could think is of is poor Joe in a jar on the mantle in the house of the mother that abandoned him after he had been abandoned by a birth mother. 

 
 

He visits me in my dreams every once in a while.  He’s always too busy to hang out with me for very long.  He’s moved on.  He’s got new friends.  He seems happy now.