He came first in a ragged manner, dressed in solemn garb.
He floated, like a wilted flower, pounded by the rain, among the mourners, adverting their eyes at his presence.  
An unwarranted pity grew in my heart as I watched him, his eyes falling at last upon the casket of our loved.
I was drawn to him in the strangest manner and did not fight the urge, tapping his shoulder.

“What is your plan?” I asked in a voice low as not to be heard by the rest.

He stared for a moment responding “I will take him just as I have taken all before him.” 

“Why,” I questioned, keeping my voice one of nonchalant curiosity, of which I was trying to succeed “why do you choose this”

He smiled a heartbroken smile that could have shattered the strongest of souls“Ah, but I do not choose this life. I am a mere tool of those unwilling to look me in the eye, those turned from the truth.” 

I was silenced by his answer, and there we stood in this quiet that only death himself could conjure. We watched the people of the event,

I wondered what it really was, a celebration of life or guilty remembrance.

“Will you take him gently?” I asked in a small voice.

“I will hold his hand with the tenderness of which you remember him.” 

I saw him again, throughout the year, and at each meeting, we would stand together in a quiet compliance of love and sorrow made by a mutual understanding. Made by friendship.

And as you stand with me here, in your cream-colored dress, and flowing veil,
I see him once again, but not in his dark clothes and tattered black shoes but in a suit of white, his eyes soft with a quiet smile playing at his lips.

Today, he is not here to be used, or to seal the end, but to be a witness of a new beginning. We both know while this path is fresh, it will only end with my hand in his.

And I can only hope you remember me tenderly.