"For Everything He Gave". Updated.

Inside the church, it was silent. I watched over my shoulder as people filed in, everyone easily recognizable from somewhere, somewhere in that tiny town we all called home. But these people weren’t the people I saw every day, walking to school, shopping for groceries in the Minimart, pushing their way from class to class. These people were dark, sad versions of the friends I had, like shadows or ghosts, the life all but sucked out of them.
The church was big, made of those weird yellow bricks that seem to turn up out of nowhere at construction sites. Inside, it could have been mistaken for any 20th century church: dark wood paneling the walls and fake marble tiles making up the floor. When I was really young, maybe four or five, Father Joseph used to let me and the other four or five year olds run up and down the aisle before mass began. That’s how our town was, that close. Even now, looking around the room, I could point out those four and five year olds—now fifteen and sixteen—that I used to run around with. Even on that day, eleven years later.
For many, it was plainly and simply Thursday. It was ordinary, a day that would come and pass with the usual commotion of work or school. But for us, in our little town that had always been so close, it was so much more.
Beside me, Amanda Locke was sitting with her head resting against her arms, folded across the hard wood at the side of the pew. Her legs were crossed, her foot tapping slowly to her own silent rhythm.
“Amanda,” I whispered, reaching out to tap her shoulder. After a few seconds, she sat up straight in the pew, turning to look at me. She wasn’t saying anything and I knew she wouldn’t, not then, so I did. “I’m so sorry.”
It was then the organ music began to rise, and the doors at the back of the church swung open to reveal four men, each holding a corner of a deep mahogany coffin. The man in front on the left, I recognized immediately. I knew Amanda did, too. I felt her tense beside me, her breath shaking as she met the gaze of the man. He was her father, after all, and inside that mahogany casket was the body of his son.

* * * *

The Locke’s had lived on the same street as my family for six years. We lived in one of those neighborhoods that used to be super prestigious, but kind of broke down over time. Now, it was filled with two dozen little ranch style houses, with three or four of the giant Victorian mansions left. I only knew one family who lived in one of those houses, and that was the Locke’s.
I always wondered if they were lonely in that house. They didn’t have a big family, and without all of them home, it had to feel so empty. For so long, in that big empty house, it had been Amanda, her parents and her brother, older by one year, Justin. Justin Locke, with his clear blue eyes and smile that could light up a room. You always knew when you were with Justin. There was something about him—a glow, maybe—that made it impossible not to know.
His family thought it would be sad to see him off to college in two years, when he would be eighteen. But they thought that he’d always come back. They thought he’d accomplish everything, every dream that had ever come to him—maybe he would have. They never thought this would happen. They never thought that he’d leave them, so alone in that big empty house. At least, they never thought it would happen like this.

* * * *

“Courtney.” The music was rising again, the men positioned at the corners of the casket. I followed the deep color of the wood, as the men began to move the casket, Mr. Locke still in the front, on the left. I tried hard, so hard to think of Justin’s face. It was so familiar, a face I had seen every day for almost six years, yet I couldn’t remember.
All I could picture was him lying so still inside that box. That box that must have seemed so small, so different from that big house. That house that would be so empty without him.
“Courtney.” The music was at its apex, the notes flowing, flowing. It was soft, melancholic, but still it seemed so loud as it echoed all around. “Courtney.”
I looked to the side of me, at Amanda. The organ was beginning to fade, and as the doors swung shut behind her father and those three other men, I heard her whisper my name.
“Look.” She was pointing to the front of the church, at the pulpit facing the congregation. There, shuffling papers nervously, was my younger sister, Rainer.
With a shaking hand, she reached out and tapped the tiny microphone on the pulpit.
“H-hi,” she said, her lips close to the microphone. Slowly, people who had not yet noticed her turned to face the front of the church once again. “I’m…Rainer Whitaker.”
Rainer bit her bottom lip, struggling, I knew, with the words. Even when they were written down, she could never quite seem to be comfortable saying them.
“How many of you have ever wanted something? I mean, anything,” she asked, her eyes darting from the papers in front of her, to the people all around. People began raising hands, slowly though, as if admitting to something they shouldn’t have been doing. “Alright,” Rainer said, once it seemed as if everyone who was willing to contribute had a hand raised. Quickly, the hands went down.
“How many of you have ever wanted something for someone else?” she asked. A few hands went up, then a few more. Not many people seemed to understand what she was trying to say—maybe they didn’t want to. After twenty seconds or so, instead of dismissing the hands again, Rainer raised her own. “I want a lot of things, I mean, who doesn’t?”
A few “yeahs” and “mhms” echoed from the congregation. After a few seconds, though, it was silent.
“I know someone else who would want something, something not for himself, but for everyone else. For all of you,” Rainer continued, her hand still raised. No one else dared to lower their hand either. “Justin Locke was a special person. He touched all of our hearts, and if you don’t feel that way then I guess you’re heartless.”
Beside me, I could feel Amanda relax. She was looking up at Rainer, her eyes wide, like a little kid seeing magic tricks being done for the first time. Rainer then brought her hand back down, Amanda watching intently. The others followed her lead. Again, there was silence.
“Justin loved so many people, and I know that you all love him,” Rainer said, her voice ringing off the high cathedral ceilings. “He was so good to me, as a girlfriend. He was so good to everyone. None of us wanted this to happen, not to Justin. I didn’t know him well, not as well as many of you sitting here today, but I do know one thing, and I hope you do, too: Justin would never want this to hurt you.”
And with those words, my sister, fifteen years old, stepped down from the pulpit, papers clutched in her hand as cheers broke out, echoing all around.
I turned to look at Amanda again, and saw on her face the only assurance I needed to make sure she would be okay. As she clapped along with all those people—for my little sister, the girl who Justin had loved so much—she was smiling, her head tilted up towards the peaked ceiling.
I love you, I saw her mouth to the sky. Her expression was soft.
“He’ll wait for you,” I whispered, after a few seconds of simply watching her wistful face. She was almost unmoving, as if any sudden movement might scare his love away.
“I know,” Amanda replied, turning to look at me. “He always has.”
It’d be hard, harder than anything she’d ever had to go through before, but she would fight through. After all, that was what Justin would’ve wanted.

* * * *

I could imagine his blue eyes sparkling, lighting up everything and everyone in heaven. He’d be a star, the brightest in the sky.
Slowly, it came back to me. Finally, I could remember what he had been for so long, all that time before the heart attack had taken his life. I could feel it, his glow.
I knew he could hear Amanda. I knew he’d been listening, listening for the moment she needed him. And I knew exactly what he would say.
I love you, too, he’d whisper, smiling, always smiling. For everything you gave.