The Death of Charlie Dennis


Two years ago I was told that I was going to die. I wish I could say that I beat the odds and that I am a modern day miracle, but that would be a lie. You see I know that it would be a lie, because yesterday I died. I woke up and realized no one could see me, and thats when I knew that my heart must have failed in my sleep. I’ve been standing here waiting for some white light to take me to haven or another world, but so far nothing. I’ve had two years to come to terms with my impending death, but I never thought that it would be this lonely.

Being dead is like being weightless, its painless and easy. I stand by my window looking out at the ocean when it hits me how ironic it is that I spent months saying goodbye to this view, and yet here I am. As I watches the seagulls fly away from the shore my mom comes into my room. Her eyes are red and puffy, and she looks horrible. Then I would to if my daughter had just died after a two year fight. I can only watch as she walks over to my bed and sits down. She picks up one of my pillows and hugs it tight and then starts to sob. This is too much... I can’t just stay here and watch them grieve me. My mom stands and wipes the tears from her eyes and closes the door as she leaves the room. I start to cry and it is the oddest feeling I’ve every had it’s like the emotions are so powerful that they are coming out of my every pore. Then faster than the blink of an eye I’m standing in the living room of my house.

There are people in black huddled around a picture of me on the baby grad piano my father got me for my sixteenth birthday. I see my dad siting in the corner of the room looking out the window looking sadder than I’ve ever seen him. My mom is talking to one of my teachers, looking like she wants to run from reminders that I not coming back. I walk over towards my dad and see a book in his hands, its one of our family picture albums. He has it open to a picture of him and me on a family vacation to France. We had gone as soon as I was strong enough to fly. I had always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower, and my parents wanted to give me one last gift. The picture is me and my dad standing in front of the Arc de triumph. Next to it is where my mom had written; Charlie and Frank Paris, France 2013 As my dad looks at the picture I see a tear stream down his cheek. I can’t do this it is too much. Why couldn’t I just have stopped existing after I died. This is so much worse! Than like the blink of an eye I’m standing one the beach.

I look up to find that all my friends and family are standing together talking. I walk so that I can hear what they are saying,
“Charlotte Dennis was a wonderful young women who was taken too soon. She will be missed by the people who love her, but she will never be forgotten to the one’s who’s lives she touched.” Said pastor Greg as he finished he gestured towards my father.
“Charlie loved life and its not fair that she didn’t get to live more of it, but if I know anything about my daughter it’s that she loved three things... The people she cared for, music, and this beach.” He said as he took a remote out of his jacket pocket and pressed play, and my favorite song starts to play. “Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes. Five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear. Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?” The sounds of Season of Love plays as my mother walks over to hand my father a blue urn that I had picked out months before. They opened the lid and together let the wind blow me away into the ocean.
“Goodbye sweetheart, we love you.” my mother whispers, and as the wind takes hold of what use to be my body something happens. I feel this warmth calling me, and its almost as if I had been waiting for it to come.

I walk towards the warmth, and as I reach the water I keep walking. Towards the setting sun, the line where the sky meets the water. And suddenly it makes since...suddenly everything makes since and I can go.