Close to Home
There were as many voicemails as there were missed calls on her phone. Some were from her grandma, but some were from friends she hadn’t spoken to in a while. In her worn out state of mind, this didn’t seem to be too big of a deal. She fell asleep after rejecting another of her grandma’s relentless calls. What was her problem this morning?
Harper found herself having an odd dream. She was surrounded by people from her past and her whole family. They surrounded her, reaching out for her. Their outstretched hands all held different cellphones that seemed to be dialing her. Their screams kept growing louder and louder no matter how hard she tried to cover her ears. She could see her parents and grandparents getting closer to her while continuing to dial her number on their phones. They wouldn’t stop yelling her name, almost as if they were trying to get her attention even though she was looking each of them right in the face. Her grandma was the closest one to her at this point, and her hand was just a few inches from her. Just as she was about to grab Harper by the arm, she dialed her phone number again. This time Harper actually heard it ringing.
She woke up breathing hard with her hand clapped to her chest. Her phone really was ringing again. She was beyond irritated at this point. She picked up her phone, ignoring the countless missed calls, voicemails, and text messages. She answered, breathless and cranky, “Yeah! I’m awake. What’s going on, grandma?”
Harper drew in a quick breath as her grandmother hesitated. “Have you, uh, listened to my messages, sweetie? It’s important.”
“I just woke up. Why…?”
Her grandma sighed loudly and said, “Harper, I’m so sorry. I wanted to give you the news before you saw it online or heard it from one of your friends. Your sisters couldn’t tell you. They asked me to.”
“Tell me what?” Harper asked, finally waking up and realizing the severity of the situation. Her grandma never called this many times unless something was wrong. “Is it grandpa? Is he in the hospital again? I can be home in an hour. Is he okay?”
“No, babe. It isn’t your grandfather. He’s fine. Don’t worry about us, Harper. But you should come home as soon as you can. You should be here with us… With your friends…” She drew out the last words longer than anyone normally would have.
“Oh. Oh, my gosh. Is it my mom? What happened? Is she okay?”
“Harper. Listen. I’m so sorry to tell you, but you’ve lost another friend today. It’s Nick. He got in an accident early this morning. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, sweetie.”
Harper couldn’t breathe. Her grandma’s voice was still echoing in her ears. Nick. How could he just be gone? She could vaguely hear her grandmother continuing to apologize for her loss. She kept telling her how sorry she was and how everyone in the family would miss him too. She thought she heard her say something about funeral arrangements.
She interrupted her grandma by exclaiming, “Where was he? Was he drinking? Do you know what happened?”
Startled, her grandma grew quiet. “Yes, honey. I do. Nick had been out drinking with his sister for her birthday. They were in the city.”
“His sister’s birthday. So he was close by? He was here. He was here. By me. He was here and he didn’t call me for help. Why?”
Harper’s grandmother stuttered a little, “I don’t know, baby. I don’t know. I wish I did.” She began to cry quietly on the other end of the phone, “I wish I knew why, Harper…”
All of a sudden everything was black. Harper dropped her phone on the floor and fell on her knees. She was screaming so loud that her roommate Olivia ran out from the bathroom to check on her. By the time she got there, Harper had already passed out on the ground. Olivia could hear a voice yelling on the phone.
Olivia quickly picked up Harper’s phone, immediately recognizing her grandmother’s voice, “Hi, Lucy. What’s going on? I think Harper must have blacked out. Is everything okay?”
Lucy filled Olivia in on what she missed. Lucy didn’t know Nick, but she knew how much Harper cared for him. From what Harper had told her, they’d been good friends since they were little kids. Olivia sat down the cold, hard floor of their dorm and stroked Harper’s long hair until she woke up. When she did, she looked up at Olivia’s sad face and prayed that this was all just a bad dream.
While it wasn’t a dream, the days leading up to the funeral were a blur. Harper wanted to be at home with her friends and family that were hurting too. But she couldn’t even leave her bed. She didn’t sleep, and when she did, she had the same nightmare as before. Everyone was surrounding her, reaching out for her. She didn’t eat, and when she tried, she got sick. She didn’t go to her classes for the next week. She remained in her dorm with Olivia, who didn’t go to her classes either. She stayed in their room with Harper to take care of her while she wasn’t able to take care of herself. Olivia had to remind her to get out of bed to shower and eat. She even had to make Harper brush her teeth because she would forget. By the time the funeral came around, Harper was barely even a person anymore.
On that November morning, the last leaves were clinging tightly to the trees. It was cold and had been raining just moments before Harper got to the funeral home where she would watch one of her childhood best friends get buried. She couldn’t speak, or even cry, to the family members that sat around her. She had her hands clinched tightly to her long, black dress. Harper and her family were some of the first people to walk through the dark double doors of the funeral home. From the moment she sat down she kept her eyes tightly shut, hoping that maybe the tears wouldn’t be able to fall out from under her lashes. She sat quietly in the too-crowded room, surrounded by people she knew, but she didn’t open her eyes until she heard music begin to play in the background. She recognized the Avenged Sevenfold song. It was one of Nick’s favorites. They had gone to one of their concerts together a few years before.
Harper opened her eyes to see a room full of people she knew from her past. There were old friends, family, and people she recognized to be Nick’s friends. There must have been one hundred people crammed into that room, and there were many more still fighting a long line to get in and say their last words. There was a crowd gathered around the casket that Harper couldn’t make herself look at when she first arrived. Seeing all those people who must have loved and cared for Nick as must as she had must have given her strength. She got up and walked with the rest of her family to say her last goodbye to him. She slowly walked down the aisle next to his casket where his family stood to greet the people coming to see him. She watched as the people in front of her shook hands with his mother, father, and sister. When it came time for her to do the same she paused for a moment before hugging each one of them, probably longer than anyone else. She let her tears fall, but she did so gracefully. It wasn’t until she had reached the casket that she could no longer control her sobs.
Harper looked down at her best friend’s body. Up until that moment, she had assumed that she’d be afraid to look at him. She thought that he wouldn’t look the same as he had used to. But she noticed that he looked handsome. She imagined him with too much makeup, and she thought that he might look sad. But his mouth seemed to form a small smirk under his unruly red beard. The little smile didn’t make things better, and it didn’t bring him back to life. But it gave her a little bit more courage to stay and listen to Nick’s mother give the sweetest, most tearful eulogy that she had ever heard.
His mom spoke of all of the strange things Nick loved to do. She mentioned that he had recently started going to church, as well as making bread and jam. She talked about the many years that he was an Eagle Scout and helped the younger kids earn their badges. Nick’s mother shared all of the love she had for him with everyone there that day. She cried, but she said that this had to be God’s plan for Nick.
“It isn’t what any of you want to hear, and it wasn’t what I want to hear either. But the truth is that he’s gone. My sweet Nicky is gone too soon. God must have loved Nicky so much that He wanted him to come home to Him sooner. But just look around. Look at how many people came. Look at how many lives Nicky touched. He did this. Each and every one of you loved him for some reason or another, and that love was strong enough to bring you here. I’m shocked, but I am so thankful. I didn’t even know my Nicky knew this many people. This is what he would have wanted. He would have wanted all of you here to say goodbye with a smile on your face. He meant something to all of you, just like you all meant something to him. Nick was so special. He was beyond selfless. He’d give a stranger the shirt off his back before he let them be unhappy. He’d buy you a beer or make you some bread. Nicky would do anything just to get a smile. He made sure everyone was happy before he ever thought about himself. So, I’m so glad that all of you are here to think of him. He’d be so grateful that each of you came. So, thank you. Thank you all.
Harper was crying. Tears were streaming down her makeup-less face. She hung on every word Nick’s mom spoke. Harper knew she was right. Every one there knew and loved Nick, and that was all anyone could ask for then. She looked around and took in each of the faces that were present, and she knew that each of them were there to share their pain and mourning with each other. But she also knew now that they were there to tell their different stories about Nick.
After his mom was done speaking, a single line was formed for everyone to exit the funeral home. Harper, holding her grandmother’s hand, noticed that everyone that had went outside was standing around the hearse with a beer in their hand. Almost everyone held up their drinks and toasted. They drank to Nick, and she knew he would have loved that. She watched as some of her closest friends and relatives dried their eyes and began to tell their favorite tales of Nick and his shenanigans. A smile started to spread across her face as she listened to some guys Nick went to high school with tell everyone about a time that he changed the background on every school desktop to his face so it looked like he was licking the screen. He was that kind of person, and Harper was so thankful that that was how he would be remembered.
Eventually she caught herself telling her favorite story about Nick as well. She started out quiet, but once she knew people were listening and actually wanted to hear what she had to say, she grew more confident. She spoke of the last concert they went to together. The two of them had went to see Avenged Sevenfold a few years back with a group of friends. Harper and Nick had sat in the backseat of Nick’s Jeep listening to their two friends argue about who got to drive home. They were screaming and yelling and Harper and Nick were in the back fighting about how was stronger. They tried to fight each other, but really just ended up laughing and mocking their other friends.
It was hard for Harper to come home and see so many people she loved and cared for hurting. But she had a feeling that Nick was watching over her. When she was done telling her story, she made sure to add, “If Nicky were here, he never would have let me tell that. He would have been so upset because he wouldn’t have wanted our friends to know we were making fun of them.” Right as she said that, it began to rain. Just a light drizzle, nothing to harmful. But she thought it was Nick, getting her back for telling that story to all their old friends.
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