The Unexpected Gift of a Funeral

The minute I walked into that room, time disappeared.

I was there to grieve. The woman who died was married to a childhood friend of mine, a Cuban immigrant like me and like all of us who grew up together in Catholic school. She died much too young and much too suddenly. But something else happens at a funeral when the person who passed away is connected to your childhood. Miami can be a small town. Suddenly I found myself surrounded by people I hadn't seen in many decades.

There was the first boy I kissed. The second boy I kissed. Actually all my crushes. Friends who drifted away or I lost touch with. The people I thought were impossibly cool. The ones who went on to build real lives, amazing careers and become today’s big shots, even though back then they were just kids sitting next to me in class or passing me by in the hallways.

We traded stories we never would have admitted in eighth grade. We laughed over memories that somehow every one of us still carries around. No one from my “current life” knows those things about me. The strangest part is I felt completely comfortable being myself with people I hadn't seen in more than fifty years. Like no time went by except I was a more confident person. I realize how much energy I wasted back then worrying about fitting in, saying the right thing, wondering what everyone thought of me. None of it mattered.

The heartbreaking goodbye I went to Miami for somehow turned into a room full of love, laughter and second chances. Maybe we don't outgrow the people who knew us first. We just forget how much they helped shape us. And sometimes, a heartbreaking goodbye is the thing that finally reminds you.