What a Wicked Game

'Wicked Game' was playing on the radio when I woke up this morning and I thought, 'Why didn't we play that at your funeral?'

When you were a young teenager, you talked to Chris Isaak on the phone on one of those Saturday morning shows for kids. Chris had been a bit flirty with the girl before and Philip Schofield was trying to keep you from talking to him just in case, well, you know. You weren't happy about that because, although you really liked Philip, you loved Chris. It was near Valentine's Day and Chris asked you who you would be sending a Valentine's Day card to. You answered, 'Chris' but it wasn't that Chris, it was another Chris from school. Two Chris's and both unrequited love. 

It was ten years later when you died and it seemed appropriate to play 'Everybody Hurts,' by REM and 'With or Without you,' by U2. They were your current loves. But just think, those beginning notes in that packed crematorium at the end of the service! 

And it was a wicked game we were playing. You collapsing the day before your graduation. You on a life support machine while the graduation was going on. Me holding your cold hand and saying,'You'd be putting your cap and gown on now.'

It was a wicked game when all your newly graduated friends sat in that packed crematorium on that hot day and listened to me talking about you. And your dementia-ridden grandmother knowing she was at a funeral but didn't know who died. And your loyal school friends who are still in contact with me. And me and your dad and your brother.

And it was a wicked game to make us go on living our lives without you. To make us find new ways of living with a big hole, right there, in the middle of us. We've survived but, seventeen years later, it still hurts like hell.

'What a wicked game to play, to make me feel this way.'