2.5

[Janelle wrote her obituary, so I'll write an account of my funeral.]

The room was hushed and cast in muted hues. Tens of people gathered at the front of the church to wish Robert William Van Arsdale Junior goodbye. That is the first and last time his complete name will appear in print because it's quite a hassle to write. Groups of well-wishers approached his beleaguered family to wish them strength and luck. "I'm just here because his sister had such a hard time dealing with his death," said one supporter. "I think he's lucky to have them," said another of his family.

Robert died after a long battle with some disease or another (does it really matter which? I mean I wrote it down but it's on the other side of the room and nobody really cares how he died). Instead of that story, his will stipulates that I say that he died defending a shipload of orphans from space pirates by defeating the cyborg pirate captain in one-on-one combat, after which he died from awesomeness poisoning. Luckily his will does not stipulate how convincing I have to be of that fact.

The service was tasteful and not very long, both because his family had places to be and because not many people had things to say. The pastor's message was quite respectful of the deceased, and contained an enough information on Robert's life to convince the audience that perhaps it was better that they didn't have an open-casket service after all. After the sermon, there was an opportunity for those who knew him in life to come to the front to speak. The speakers were his sister, who shared her favorite memory of Robert: her eighth grade graduation, his mother, who told a story about how he was sick once and slept all day, his most recent ex-girlfriend, who told everyone she suspected he was a transvestite, a homeless man who came in to be warm but told a touching story about how he met Robert twenty minutes before and held his hand (the funeral home workers checked that the casket was, indeed, closed) and a single woman who cried for twelve minutes without speaking and then ran from the mic. The service concluded with a beautiful interpretive dance piece by Robert's brother and a tasteful reading of some of Robert's poetry. After the reading of the poem known only as "Hey Philip seriously don't let anyone read this but get a load of what I wrote last night when I was mostly asleep," the well-wishers wished well and then left.

Robert was put into the ground and mislabeled as Mrs. Betsy Peroe, a mistake which will undoubtedly increase his afterlife visitation.