Is proof enough to be dead?

my current journey of grief for someone I wasn't close to

Last night, I had a dream. It was set in my old house, except with multiple stories. Still, I knew it was my house. When you got to the entrance after about 5 consecutive flights of stairs with breaks in between, you would arrive at our mat. The mat was a light brown, faded, with the words ‘WELCOME’ on it. The weather was slightly wet, making the light grey floor darker as a result and the leaves at the side were simultaneously crisp yet wilted. As if they were paper towels that had absorbed and wrung out some water for cleaning. A mess had indeed been made in this dream. I had a party. The party was so similar to my little brother’s christening, which I have no proof of because my parents took my phone after school called home and said that I had gotten in trouble for a WhatsApp group chat (if you didn’t get in trouble over a WhatsApp group chat in year 8, then did you really experience a UK secondary school experience? I don’t think so). I remember it vividly still, so recognising it in this dream was easy. There were cousins from room to room, breaking cupboards and the sound of the music from the garden finding a way to echo through the now 9 story house. The only places that seemed to stay clean were the two bathrooms of my former home. There was a soft yellow hue that you’d see when you looked up for a birds eye view of the flights of stairs that my dream created. In any other scenario, it’d be menacing to see that above you. But to me, it was as comforting as a long day downstairs sitting and fighting to stay up ending with your dad carrying you up to bed. Despite the chaos, I had never felt more calm. As I walked through, I was able to pick up every child from every random nook and cranny of the house, calming them down immediately. Eventually, I began to hear cars pulling up, ready to collect their children. I took my little brother by the hand and told my little sister to walk to the car. I saw a bunch of aunties and uncles, all yelling for their children to come back to them. They all slowly came down in random patterns. For some reason, a woman tried to give my little brother a drink in the dream and he pushed it away from himself. I snatched the drink and told my mum as she came to get him…she drank it immediately and we all laughed, telling her that he didn’t drink it. She was wearing a sleeveless version of her black maternity dress she wore when she was heavily pregnant with my little brother, pregnant in the dream now. She is not pregnant in real life…to my knowledge. Amongst the aunties and uncles waiting to collect their children was my uncle, wearing a light brown trench coat. I remembered that he’s dead and I woke up immediately. I genuinely forgot, for a moment long enough to imagine a normal experience he used to have.

He had an open casket funeral. I was running late to his funeral because I took the wrong directions and got to his burial site early. His funeral was getting livestreamed on this private video server. I knew it’d be an open casket because the 360p video had a body in the corner. The casket was adorned with football memorabilia of his favourite team. I came to the venue just as people were allowed to say their final goodbyes to him. The moment I got close to him, I gasped. Whatever was in there was nothing like the memory I had of him. He was thinner and…his mouth specifically had been altered. He had died of a brain related issue and, eerily, his head was now shaped in an odd way. I had to shut myself up despite the music and the crying around me. I felt guilty that I could be so afraid of someone who was meant to be family to me. I decided that it couldn’t be him. I went back to my dad and my other uncle to say one thing only: It looks nothing like him.

We weren’t particularly close. We didn’t really have much to talk about. I was a girl who tried to steer away from football, he’d get into heated yet lighthearted debates over who had the better team. Chelsea or Man United. Man United or Chelsea. He mostly spoke to my dad and I’d say hi to him. At most, he’d tease that one day, his son and my little sister (who are close in age) would get married. There was talk like that for me, but he couldn’t join in because he had no son for me to be linked to that was my age. To be clear, this isn’t a blood related uncle, for anyone who was a little afraid reading the first part of this section. I ain’t that white. But I remembered his voice in the background. Coming to his home. The little fights he’d have with his wife. The moments of joy he’d bring to everyone. He was a funny man. In contrast, there was nothing fun to see with his funeral. There was nothing to celebrate or laugh over. The funniest guy in the room was gone. I thought seeing the body, watching it get lowered into the ground, would be enough to acknowledge that. I guess not.

During the burial, there were a few bangs from below inside where the casket had been buried. They were like knocks. Clink. Clink. CLINK? CLANG! Tapping on the metal. For a moment, I had the irrational hope that he would rise out. I thought that maybe I would witness a miracle. He would speak inside the metal coffin and tell everyone to let him out and that he was hungry. Then it stopped. The doves were called out and I felt…off. I was sad, but I was more so off. I didn’t understand why I felt myself being so irrational

My uncle’s death, in some ways, is similar to those few days after New Years where you forget that we’re in a completely different year from the one we were in yesterday. At first, it’s a giant occasion. You remember it clearly and it seems to come out of nowhere, even if you secretly knew it was happening. The warning signs are there. The world feels colder and colder all around you, you’re happy for a good moment and then you get this…new feeling. It hits you and you’re surprised that it hits you because you knew it was coming. The year was always going to end. My uncle has been sick for a long time. I haven’t seen him since I was 13. Why am I surprised that the illness that I was hearing about that was so great, he had limited visitors, took his life? I cried and I did my best to move about my day. The event had happened. I could move on from then, right? Then the inevitable funeral happened. For the new year, school starts up again, work is back on, and routine is meant to come to normal. Yet you keep fucking up the date. You know it is a new era, a new time, seemingly so quickly, yet your subconscious shows just how used to things being a certain way it computes the world. It doesn’t matter that you were there for the countdown, that you gasped at his body, you forget. You forget…for a split second…and you are comforted in your forgetting. In my forgetfulness, I had the most peaceful dream I’ve had in a long time. Then I remembered and I had to wake up immediately. The trench coat gave it away. He always wore bomber jackets. The way your pen begins to automatically correct itself for the year shows that your memory has betrayed you.

Proof isn’t enough to be gone. Loss isn’t something we’re used to. We understand when a new birth has come that it is a permanent vestige in our minds and that is a whole life we must remember, even if we do it poorly. My other uncle recently had his first daughter after, I believe, three sons. I will likely forget her birthday from time to time and she will pop up randomly in my mind if he ever asks me how I am, but she is there. I understand she is there. I can’t understand a lack of presence, even if I know why. Even if I have gone through the process of why. I know I have to understand it, but I just can’t. Will I ever?