Auf Wiedersehen No one but you can understand me, Emmy. Now that youre gone I have nothing.

Its so hard to think of you in the past tense. Every morning when I wake up theres this second, the best second of my day, when I forget that youre gone, but then the news of your death and the void it created hits me like a wave and I feel pinned to my bed by the weight of it. Yesterday at your funeralI kept my head down, not looking at any of the forced solemn expressions on the faces of the distant relatives surrounding me, but I could feel their piercing gazes searching my cheeks for a tear. I could tell they were judging me, thinking I loved you less because I shed no tears and wore a face as blank and expressionless as stone, while our parents eyes were faucets of grief. In reality, it took everything in me not to let my sadness slip out in the form of tears. I did not want the pity of strangers. My throat was tight with the effort to hold back my dismal sadness. When I look in the mirror now I see the ghost of what your face has been these past few months, the painful tightness of trying to hold yourself together when all you really want is to burst into a million shards and crawl away into some dark corner of existence so that the deep black emptiness within you will seem less abysmal in comparison. I see in our mom what happens when you let the urge to do that win. I dont think shell ever be able to put the pieces of herself back together, or return from whatever tear-filled chasm her soul is being drowned in. Her tearful speech at your funeral was so wracked with choking sobs that at points it was barely intelligible. At regular intervals she would flash a yellowed, tear-stained Polaroid at the rapt audience. The pictures were ordered from oldest to newest. In most of them you were dressed in a tutu and tights. My heart sank to see your smile and waist progressively shrink. In every picture you were wearing that silly dollar store necklace Id gotten you for your fourth birthday. It was hanging limply around your cold neck as you lay in your wooden casket. Before

2 the ceremony began I unfastened it, trying not to touch your clammy, powdered skin, and slipped it into my trench coat pocket. I dont think if anyone saw what Id done that they would have understood, but I know you would have. I found your note just before your funeral. It was slipped under the cover of my overdue library book, AMurder is Announced. In the note you bequeathed me the necklace, but when I asked dad where it was he said it was going to be buried with you. I didnt want the last thing that reminded me of you, and tied me to you, to be buried and lost forever. Youd been replacing everything this past year, from your clothes to your music and friends. The only constant had been that silver coloured necklace with its fake stone of red dyed glass. I felt, that by keeping it through your gloomy transition, you were keeping me in your life, and allowing a small part of your true self to survive. I just couldnt let it be devoured by that icy, indifferent dirt. I also couldnt go with the procession to the cemetery to watch your casket lowered into the damp earthen hole they call a grave. In fact, I left long before the pastor finished with his wretched speech. When I got up I could hear my heart beating loud in my ears. Over that internal clamour I could make out the booming voice of the pastor, cut through by the hissing whispers of our friends and family which started as I rose and the unceasing weeping of our parents, punctuated by the rhythmic tacking of my worn out dress shoes on the hardwood floor. All of these sounds were amplified by the echoing, high-ceilinged room. Im sorry I left your funeral, but I had to. The stuff flowing out of the pastors mouth was complete bull, and I felt that if I stayed in that church I would have created a scene and told him what I thought. He was saying, though your death was devastating and tragic, that our Lord has a reason for everything that happens. What did he mean, that your death was meant to be? Well, it wasnt! It was totally preventable! There were so many people that could have seen it coming. I should have seen it!

3 You were a depressed addict, but you could have gotten help, gone on to graduate high school, attend college, get married. You would have been a good mother. You were always so kind and helpful. Thinking of your death is not what threatens to unhinge me, its thinking about your life and all that was and all that can now never be. I will never get to drive you to prom, intimidate the first boy you bring home, watch you dance on your wedding day, or even hug you again or tell you I love you. Whens the last time I said that, a month ago, two? Now, as I sit here by your gleaming gravestone, so final with its proclamation; Emelia Johnston June 5th 1995 December 31st 2012, I feel my weary resolve cracking. Since I got news of your death three days ago my sleep has been fractured and uneasy, full of memories of you woven into nightmares.I havent shed a tear all this time. Now, finally, I can let my hair fall over and shadow my face and I can cry. I dont think if I start that I shall ever be able to stop. I cannot bring myself to say goodbye to you Emmy, so Ill say Auf Wiedersehen. It means farewell until we meet again.