Suicide Rainbows-Part 3

Ride the tide, don’t fight with the current that guided you

Melt the ice round the furnace burning inside of you

I gotta do better, I gotta do better, I gotta do better

There’s nothing they can do that I can’t do better

Better yet, there’s nothing I can do that I can’t do better

Yeah, I’m better

I said I’m better…

-Ab Soul-’Do Better’

CONTINUED FROM PART 2

MONDAY, JUNE 1, 2009

The morning was a bright and humid one, as I made the long trek from my hotel in the Warehouse District all the way uptown to the funeral home. I thought about catching a streetcar down but decided against it at the last minute. With the services starting at 10 a.m., I got there a half hour early. The nerves rattled throughout my body, as I stood outside the mortuary in black clothing, complete with shades to hide the bags underneath my weary, bloodshot eyes. By this time, I had developed a profound addiction to alcohol and painkillers. With all the soda and energy drinks I’d been consuming to stay up, I was looking more and more like a well-dressed crack fiend every day. The minister finally arrived and welcomed me as he unlocked the doors. We exchanged pleasantries as he slowly made his way inside, the weight of the moment growing more painful with every step.

The room where the service was to take place was awfully cold; a stark contrast to the unbearable humidity outside beating down on my dark clothing. Several rows of chairs were lined up before a moderately furnished coffin, which was surrounded by flowers. I didn’t want to look ahead, but it felt as if my neck was stuck inside some invisible vice forcing my eyes forward. With the cold air stabbing every pore in my weakened body, the minister finally opened the coffin and lifted a white, satin cloth that was placed over my mother’s face. It was a complete miracle that I somehow remained standing.

Plaster. Cold plaster…

That’s exactly what her hands felt like as I forced myself to touch the body. Those beautiful, wonderful, and strong hands that cradled me as a baby and also never hesitated to discipline me as a child whenever I got out of line were now as cold…lifeless…plaster. I tried to get a good look at her face, looking for some resemblance to the woman who’d raised me. It didn’t look like her at all. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how I was still standing after seeing her lying there lifeless…motionless. This warm, beautiful, and oftentimes demanding woman who’d always held the weight of the world on her shoulders was now gone. This beleaguered woman, whose life was never truly hers had been used, mistreated, and betrayed all of her life…and now she was gone. No more tears. No more heartbreak and betrayal. No more pain. She was now with her Father in Heaven, a new angel dancing at the edge of the rainbow with the rest of the family.

The tears that overwhelmed me as I knelt before her, kissing her lifeless hands were not tears of sorrow. They were tears of jealousy. So many of my friends and family had gone home…yet I was still here. Why? I couldn’t figure out exactly what God wanted from me. All those nights of guzzling ridiculous amounts of prescription pills with alcohol had done absolutely nothing. I should’ve been dead. On some level, I felt I deserved to die for not being there when she needed me the most. I couldn’t stop trying to figure it out. For someone to take the number of pills I had and still live was seemingly impossible. Considering all the awful things I’d said to God in my drunken state-daring him to take my life, I expected to be roasting in Hell by now.

Nothing made sense.

After a while, the room slowly began to fill with people I hadn’t seen in ages. Friends of my mother from high school and the neighborhood all came out to pay their respects. One by one, they all tried their best to console me, attempting to either shake my hand or hug me. It must have been pretty apparent that I wasn’t in the consoling mood. I’d gone out of my way to ignore them all, only focusing on my mother. After the room filled, my stepfather of all people made his way in…and with his new mistress no less. The man who my mother rescued from the grips of drug addiction, not only cheated on her but exiled her from her own home during her darkest moment. All eyes in the place weighed heavily on him as he strolled up to the casket, making his best attempts at showing concern. Most in the room already caught wind of what he’d done and when he hovered over her body to kiss her on the cheek, some people nearly walked out. He tried his best to avoid me by sitting on the other side of the room, refusing to make eye contact with me at all costs. He was already aware that I knew what was going on and was deeply terrified of what would happen. Beating the hell out of this clown wouldn’t have done anything to bring my mother back, and I knew it. All I wanted more than anything was to go wherever it was she was going.

The minister gave a rousing sermon that mostly fell on deaf ears after several of her friends gave stirring and funny accounts of her life and the moments they shared with her. When the time finally came for me to speak, I managed to pull together all those previous years of speaking before the congregation in church as a young child. When I was done reflecting and trying my best to summarize the life of this woman, somehow there wasn’t a dry eye in the place. After the ceremony was over, the pallbearers all gathered together for the unenviable task of loading the coffin into the hearse for the long drive out to the cemetery.

A chorus of wailing and crying echoed through the place as the moment reverberated through everyone present. A mother, a sister, and a great friend had left them to finally go home. With me being one of the pallbearers, there was no greater weight or responsibility placed on the shoulders of a son than on that day. A tremendous sadness in my heart, I felt as though my knees would buckle from the weight of helping to carry her coffin to its final resting place.

Providence Park Cemetery.

The home away from home for me, at least in my mind, brought with it a morbid sense of comfort. I’d been to this place so many times to pay respects to those I lost during the days of my rebellious youth, that it did feel like home. Lifting my countenance against the rising wind, it was almost as if I could hear them calling to me, welcoming me home. The minister gave the final prayer, as several mourners took a moment for one final look at the coffin of the woman I called mother. The sun beamed brightly over me as I looked down on her freshly dug grave. I could’ve cared less because the sun wasn’t shining for me. It hadn’t shined for me in quite some time…

Cherry Platt

August 16, 1954-May 25, 2009

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 4...