What To Wear On a Friend's Funeral

They never teach you what to wear for a friend's funeral. is a dress too casual, a blazer suit too formal, jeans too nonchalant. essentially it shouldn't matter. your presence and mourning is more important, than the outfit you choose to wear. but people judge, even though the cloud of grief and sadness that occupies their mind instead of reminiscing the death of your friend, they eye the length of your dress or count the jewels on your neck. you would think they would be monotonous, silent in disparity and addled with speech because they are just so remorse-stricken but instead they try to look through your fragile boundaries, judge the lack of abundance of tears, the makeup you use to hide your dark circles and breaking skin. they judge how close you were to your dead friend by your words, memories, aura and sadness. it becomes less and room of affliction and reminiscence and more of competition and envy. you sit at the back, because those eager to show their verbal sympathy and condolences have occupied seats in the front, then the ones who've barely known your friend but are there for formality. then sits the family, all distraught and mourning, parents sit in silence, siblings in service and children in reverie. you sit away from them, too scared to reveal your thoughts because their loss is much heavier than yours. you sit at the back and stare at the decorated coffin, and possibly the worst picture of your friend. you have seen them at their best, during dates in diners, study groups, all nighters, at parties, in cinemas. you have seen them at their wildest, eyes laced with intoxication, lyrics of rock songs on their painted lips, and voice above human frequency range. you have seen them at their worst, tears staining their cheeks, eyebrows undone, just over the tip of the ledge, seconds away from ending it all. so you just know this is possibly the worst picture of them. bare faced, hair brushed down and little to no smile. you look away because it reminds you of their corpse. you stay there for hours, but you're not the last to leave. you know they would say you were stayed till the end to take some sort of high road, and if you left too early they would say you probably didn't care. it didn't matter that you cried for hours the night before, and before that, and again before that. it doesn't matter that you sit alone in bus because they were your partner and now they're not. it didn't matter that you saw them only hours before they died and you never ended up telling them you loved them and all those sad things you thought you had your entire life to tell them. you never got to tell them you loved them. no one knows that, they only think what they see. hence, it's important to know what to wear on a friend's funeral. - Himangi Rai