The Funeral

The two women stood arm in arm a slight distance away from the other mourners. It was the first time they’d met, but the friends knew each other well. Over the years, they’d shared laughter and love, heartbreak and triumph, anger and dismay. They always knew they’d meet face-to-face one day. They just never thought it would be like this.

They had come to bid farewell and amen toYouth.

There are many “old sayings.” There’s a reason for that, of course. There is truth in every one of them. The appropriate homily for this sad occasion is “Youth is wasted on the young.” It would be nice if it were never true, and surely for some, it is not. But, if ever it were, it was for him.

He had it all going for him, Youth did. He was beautiful, smart, talented and oh, so sexy.  But, alas, he was young. That goes without saying, right? And if there’s not another old saying that speaks to that, there should be. Because most of the young lack a certain judgment – let’s call it wisdom, shall we? – that comes with experience. And sad to say, experience usually takes enough years to carry one beyond “young” to… someplace else.

Youth was so busy trying to figure things out, trying to decide who he was, who he wanted to be, that he never saw the years accumulating around him like falling snow. While he was posing in front of his mental mirror, all got up in a costume of poetic angst or creative indifference, his worst enemy was able to sneak up on him, unnoticed under the cover of time.  

And then one day, cackling wildly, Age struck, and Youth was vanquished.

“I really loved him,” one woman said sadly.

“Yes. Yes, I know you did.”

***

Written for The Tenth Daughter of Memory.