I Attended My Own Funeral

The last thing I remember was the crash.

A deafening screech of metal against metal. Then silence.

When I opened my eyes again, everything felt... distant. Like I was underwater but breathing air. Colors were muted, sounds muffled.

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when I found myself standing on the edge of a churchyard, watching a small crowd gathered around an open grave.

As I stepped closer, my breath caught.

The coffin was empty.

And the funeral was for me.

I stood there, heart pounding, but the world moved as if I was a ghost—unseen, unheard.

The mourners cried softly, faces blotchy with grief. Friends, family, strangers I recognized but couldn’t place. They spoke of me in the past tense, weaving stories of my life, my kindness, my regrets.

Then, from the back of the church, a figure stepped forward.

He was tall and thin, dressed in black, his face pale and unreadable.

I felt an icy chill run down my spine.

He looked directly at me.

And then, I realized—I wasn’t the only one here who shouldn’t have been.

For hours, I drifted through the crowd, listening. The priest’s voice was steady but somber, reading from a book I recognized but couldn’t name. The eulogies painted a picture of a life finished, a chapter closed.

But something was wrong.

The people didn’t see me.

I tried to speak, to call out, but my voice was swallowed by the cold air.

Panic gripped me.

I was dead.

The figure at the back never moved. Watching. Waiting.

Curiosity overcame fear.

I followed him when the service ended.

Outside, he turned, his eyes like empty windows.

“Why am I here?” I asked, voice barely a whisper.

He smiled—a slow, knowing curl.

“You don’t belong here,” he said. “But neither do I.”

I frowned.

“I’m dead.”

He nodded. “So am I. But death isn’t what you think.”

He explained that the place I was in wasn’t just the afterlife. It was a crossing—where souls linger until they’re ready to move on.

“But I’m not ready,” I said. “I don’t belong.”

He gestured toward the graveyard, now bathed in moonlight.

“Many don’t. Some are stuck by regret. Others by unfinished business.”

I looked back at the coffin—still empty.

“Why did I come here?”

“Because something called you. A tether you forgot you had.”

Days—or maybe years—passed. Time lost meaning.

I roamed between the living world and this liminal space, learning the stories of others who attended their own funerals.

Some were angry. Others sorrowful. Some simply confused.

But the figure at the back—he was different.

He watched with calm patience, rarely speaking. When he did, his words felt like riddles.

“You need to find your tether,” he said once. “Only then will you move on.”

I asked him what mine was.

He smiled, cryptic. “You already know.”

Then, one night, I saw her.

A woman in a faded red dress, standing near the church steps.

She was crying, but her tears were not for me.

She looked at the crowd, then at the empty coffin.

Her name was Emma.

We shared memories—fragments from my past life I thought forgotten.

She was the one I left behind.

The one I loved.

With her help, I began to unravel the knot of my unfinished business.

The mistakes I’d made. The words I’d left unsaid. The promises broken.

It wasn’t easy.

Each memory was a shard of glass.

But with every step, I felt lighter.

The figure at the back nodded, approving.

Finally, I returned to the graveyard.

The coffin was no longer empty.

Inside was a small bundle of light—my essence.

The figure approached.

“It’s time.”

I felt peace for the first time since the crash.

As I stepped forward, the world around me dissolved into light.

I woke up in a hospital bed.

Machines beeped softly. Nurses bustled.

I wasn’t dead.

Not really.

The crash had left me unconscious for weeks.

But the funeral?

A vision.

Or a warning.

Since then, I live differently.

I cherish the tether—the people I love.

I’m grateful for the second chance.

Because I saw what happens when we forget to say goodbye.

And I know now:

Sometimes, the ones watching from the back aren’t just strangers.

They’re the echoes of ourselves—waiting to move on.