A Birthday and a Funeral* by Felix Aguilar

“Happy birthday!” was the last thing I said to my uncle that Friday. Later, I had gone to Menards with my dad to spend some time together and maybe to buy some stuff when suddenly, my mom is calling. My dad picked up and asked what she needed, but it was my sister on the other end telling us to come home now. He asked what happened and all she said was “he's gone.” He looked at me and asked who was gone when my sister broke into tears telling my dad something that at the time, I didn’t know, but soon enough I found out. He looked at me with a grimace face telling me my uncle had passed. “But we had just talked to him earlier” I said with a calm voice. We went to pay for the stuff we had and rushed home. When we got home, things were bad. My mom was sobbing, and my sisters were to. My dad asked how it happened, my mom didn’t know, nobody knew what had happened to him? We called my grandparents to see how they were, they were as devastated as we were. My dad asked my mom if she wanted to go to Minnesota. She wanted to go; my parents agreed on going the next day. We started packing after calling my grandparents. We got on the road the next morning and we got to my grandparents' house at six. My two aunts were outside waiting for us. We got down and hugged each other, when my mom hugged my aunts they burst into tears. After going inside, we saw our grandparents sitting on a bench they have in their living room both crying in each other's embrace, I went over and gave them both hugs trying not to cry myself after feeling so much guilt. I went up the spare bedrooms and put our bags on the beds where we were staying. The next morning was the same as the night before, everyone was feeling down, later that day me, my mom, one of my aunts and one of my uncle’s went to pick out flowers for the funeral. We spent the rest of the day getting ready for the funeral and being together. It got late so we just went to sleep, but I couldn’t sleep something was eating at me throughout the night, I eventually fell asleep and woke up tired. The funeral was later that Sunday at five thirty. We got ready to go at four thirty and left the house at five. We got to the church and parked our cars outside, rain pouring down as we walked into the church where people close to my grandmother and uncle were waiting for the funeral to start. We walked in and took our seats. A couple minutes later it started. The priest said some words about how we lost someone dear to us, but heaven gained another angel to help us throughout the rest of our lives, it went on for ten minutes before the viewing of the body started. First my grandparents and aunts went to see him and broke into tears saying their last goodbyes to their only son and only brother, after my grandparents said their goodbyes his wife, my two cousins and his granddaughter went to say goodbye to him like my grandparents they broke into tears. Then it was my family who got to see him. We walked towards his coffin my mom sobbing alongside my sisters, my dad and sisters went to see him first all of them shedding a tear, then me and my mom went to see him. He lay there motionless, a lifeless husk of who he was a few hours ago, I held back tears standing there idle with no expression but on the inside, I was enraged with myself for not being there with him, but I also felt happy because he didn't have to go through any more pain. I kept holding back my tears until his daughter walked beside me and looked at him again, she turned to me and hugged me as she broke into tears again and by that point seeing her like that just broke me inside and I shed a tear and then many more came rushing down my face. My dad walked over and pulled me into his embrace telling me my uncle was in a better place now. The preist had one more speech about how god needed my uncle to guide us during our lives. After the speech ended the casket was closed and ready to be buried. My dad, me, my grandpa, and three other cousins took the casket to the hearse. The rain still pouring down on us. When the hearse left, we went inside and finished saying goodbye to some of the guests and went home. We had friends and family over to be with us. I was feeling horrible after the funeral and decided to not say anything to my family. The rest of the day I felt sick and was getting worse and worse, so I decided to get a pill to get rid of the headache. It made me feel better for a while and I took a nap for a little bit. I woke up and went downstairs to find there was ice cream waiting for me, so I grabbed a mcflurry and stuffed myself with it. We stayed up late and watched horror movies to try and get the sadness. In the morning I still felt a little sick, so I took another pill and I felt better. Later that day we left my grandma's house