The funny thing about death is how it somehow hurts the living more than its victim.

They say that before you die, all of your neurones fire at once.
In your brain there’s a light show 
A Grande Finale
And isn’t it ironic that something so bright and beautiful always seems to signal and end?

You knew you were going to die a month in advance.
You said that you were content. 
I could feel the purples and pinks of dissapating pain come upon you
like you were being tucked into bed.
But I could feel the washed out blues come to me the same.

They asked to hear from the students.
You wanted memory of us before you were gone but I wanted new ones.
I wanted more memories for you
I wanted to conjure up lost time 
Will the clocks to turn backwards.

Before the first long term substitute, 
Before the treatments,
Before the diagnosis.

I wanted to go back to when you were just a teacher with a class full of kids
Tell them to listen a bit more
Do a bit better
Ask more questions.
The kind of questions that can be answered with a study guide under harsh florescent lights

Isn’t it funny how grief is a selfish kind of thing?
How we manage to think about someone else so much 
that it becomes just about us?
How we want to steal you from fate?
How we want to refuse time?
How I was more angry at death than you were?

We always joked that school was like a hospital 
How the unforgiving marble floors squeaked when confronted with wet shoes
How the food concocted by the luch lady magicians tasted sterile but life sustaining
How doors never slammed unless you want them to.
And how every corner of the building
there was a lesson to learn. 
And everyone wanted to stay and talk just a little bit longer.

And isn’t death funny in the way it brings people together?
How the negative space once filled by a person like you 
becomes filled by the pieces of the sould that you once touched.
Mingling together
Sharing parts of private testimonies.
Uncovering as much of your life as we know to make ou understanding of you 
Greater.
Keeping some of our memories to ourselves as some kind of artifact.
So we can hold a part of you that no one else has.

The funny thing about life is the way you can feel like you’ve known someone
for so long
but didn’t know his first name was actually William 
until someone hands you his obituary.