The Visitation

The visitation was scheduled to start at two o’clock. By then, the parking lot was full. I found a spot along the back row, facing the cemetery. The invisible drizzle seeping through the pale sky had soaked the red dirt of a fresh grave. Silk ribbons sagged from the surrounding bouquets; their colors faded by the sun.  

I stayed in my car and watched the people walking in for a break in the familiar faces. I had come alone, and the hum of the road during the drive had pushed my mind inward, down to the place where I had carried my grief since getting the call. It was the first time I’d had the chance to sit with it, and I wasn’t ready to put it away again to make small talk.

I’m a fireman, so, I go to a lot of funerals. Not because we’re all falling through roofs, or being blown to bits, but with the job, you get to know a whole lot of people. And like the rest of the world, we all die from the same stuff; heart attacks, cancer, car wrecks and just a few weeks ago, suicide. That’s what brought me to the end of that long line on a Saturday afternoon, for my friend, Aaron.   

Like me, Aaron was a fireman, but when we met, neither of us held the job. A back injury had ended his days with the fire department, and he’d started his second career at the community college as a paramedic instructor. I was freshly married, and my wife was pregnant. I needed something stable and I needed it fast. After learning that the program only lasted three semesters, I decided to enroll.

I had just come back to town after bouncing between odd jobs all over the country; an era I liked to call my long-haired years. During class one day, Aaron told a story from when he’d once worked on a fishing boat in Kodiak Alaska.

When he finished, I raised my hand, “I was a fisherman too,” I said.

“In Alaska?” he asked.

“Kodiak,” I said.  

After class, Aaron and I met up in the parking lot and swapped stories from our drifter days. Turned out, he’d been a long hair just like me but had successfully transitioned to husband and father long ago. So, I believed him when he assured me that no matter how much fun I had in the past, nothing could compare with being a father. The best was yet to come.

After graduation, I landed a job at the Birmingham Fire Department and my first assignment was to Aaron’s old station. A year later, after he became the director of the paramedic program, he hired me as a part-time instructor.   

As program director, Aaron liked to find reasons to visit the classroom. Usually he kept it official, but occasionally, he’d find other reasons. Like the day he repeatedly rammed a remote-control car against the door until I let it in. After taking the car for a lap around the classroom, he walked in gripping the controller, grinning. He explained to the class how he planned to attach a nerf-missile launcher to the back of his new toy. Then, to make up for his interruption, he hijacked my lecture on the ways of treating distributive shock for forty-five minutes.

During those moments I had to fight the urge of taking a seat with the rest of the class. Once he remembered I was in the room, he’d stop; and I didn’t want him to. The classroom was where he belonged. Not simply because he was smart or funny or entertaining. Aaron had a gift for leading those in search of a purpose towards one they might never have thought possible. As a product of his teaching style and follower of his friendly advice, I was living proof of that.  

After a few years at the college, Aaron found his way back to the classroom for good, when he took a job at his kids’ high school teaching biomedical sciences. Second to being a firefighter, I believe it’s the job he loved the most.  

At the suggestion of his obituary, Aaron’s students wore Hawaiian shirts to the visitation. In amongst the suits and firefighter uniforms, were bright reds, greens, and yellows. Obnoxious colors for a funeral. Aaron would’ve loved it.

The line wrapped through the halls of the funeral home to where the family waited. For an hour I inched along behind a group of high school students and tried to ignore each time the blonde snapped a high-angled selfie. When we cleared the doors of the chapel and Aaron’s family came into view, I had no idea what I was going to say. Words are important to me. If I don’t think I have the right ones, I won’t say anything at all.    

Aaron had been cremated so there was no casket to visit. Just scattered pictures, a couple of firefighter helmets, his badges. The types of things my wife would have chosen for me. In my head, I heard Aaron’s voice from the day I told him my wife was pregnant with our second child.

“You know what causes that right?” he grinned before delivering the punch line. “Washing your clothes together.”

For a moment I had to fight back the urge to laugh, then I noticed that after having been on her feet for over an hour, one of Aaron’s daughters had taken off her shoes. Barefooted, she stood tall and beautiful alongside her mother. To the world she was still a child, but the week’s grief had transformed her into a veteran. As each person in line took his turn, she did not hide her eyes but almost seemed to smile.  Out of respect, I tried to copy her strength. But when it was my turn, I was no match for what they were going through.

I didn’t stand there long, maybe fifteen seconds. Long enough for a few accepting nods and a short hug. Yet, though the moment was brief, by being allowed to stand together in that great sadness with those who loved Aaron the most, I felt that our friendship was honored. Before turning to walk out, past the many others that were set to receive this gift, I finally thought of the right words to say; “thank you.”