My son’s best friend read the eulogy at his funeral in a red dress.
I almost had him removed before he reached the microphone.
My son Jack died 17 days after his 18th birthday.
Cancer.
Fourteen months from diagnosis to funeral.
We found out late. Too late, as it turned out, and the treatment never caught up with it.
It still feels obscene to reduce his life to those facts.
Jack loved old horror movies and burned grilled cheese because he refused to cook it on low heat.
He hated tomatoes but ate ketchup on everything.
He could name almost every capital city in the world and couldn’t remember to bring his laundry downstairs.
And Theo had been beside him for most of it.
The boys met when they were seven.
Theo lived four houses down.
By ten, he practically lived at ours.
He slept in our spare room so often that I eventually stopped calling it the spare room.
It became “Theo’s room.”
His home life wasn’t easy.
His parents separated twice, reconciled twice, then finally divorced with enough bitterness to poison every holiday afterward.
Theo spent three Christmases in a row with us because neither parent could agree whose house he was supposed to be at.
Jack never made a big deal about it.
He’d just say, “Mom, Theo’s staying.”
Not asking.
Informing.
I always said yes.
When Jack got sick, Theo returned the favor in a way I still don’t know how to describe.
He came over every day after school.
Did homework on Jack’s bedroom floor.
Fell asleep there.
Watched bad movies with him.
He was there through the hair loss. The steroids.
The days Jack didn’t want to speak.
The days he couldn’t stop speaking because he was terrified that if he went quiet, everyone else would get scared.
There were weeks Theo saw more of my son than I did because Daniel and I were working opposite shifts, trying to keep our jobs while living at the hospital.
Theo never complained.
So when he walked into the funeral wearing a red dress, I didn’t understand.
It was bright red. Knee-length.
Simple, but impossible to miss in a room full of black, navy, and gray.
People turned.
Some openly stared.
One of Daniel’s brothers whispered, “What on earth?”
My first thought embarrasses me now.
I thought Theo was trying to make the funeral about himself.
Then I thought maybe he and Jack had fought before Jack died.
Something secret.
Something ugly.
I leaned toward two of Jack’s school friends.
“Did something happen between them? Did they argue? Is this about something?”
Both shook their heads.
One whispered, “No, Mrs. Harris.”
They were staring at him too.
Theo sat alone near the aisle.
His hands were clenched tightly together.
I didn’t know what to do. Whether to have somebody take him outside or just sit there and get through it.
We were already in pieces. And then this.
Daniel saw him a few minutes later.
“What is he doing?”
“I don’t know.”
“This is Jack’s funeral.”
“I know.”
He started to stand.
I grabbed his sleeve. “Don’t.”
“He’s wearing a dress.”
“I can see that.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Daniel’s face was raw from 17 days of barely sleeping.
Mine probably looked the same.
Grief makes you less patient with mystery.
Everything feels like one more insult you don’t have room to absorb.
Then Theo’s name was announced for the eulogy.
I had forgotten he was supposed to speak.
He stood.
The whispers followed him all the way to the microphone.
He stood there a long time without saying anything. Then he looked out at the room.
“I know half of you want me out of here right now.”
Theo stopped.
His voice cracked.
For a moment, he just stood at the microphone in that red dress while people whispered behind me.
Then he looked down at himself.
“And I know how this looks. It isn’t even mine. I borrowed it from my sister.”
A few people shifted in their seats.
My husband, Daniel, was still half-standing beside me.
I had one hand wrapped around his sleeve.
Theo swallowed.
“The reason I’m standing here in it is very simple.”
He looked toward Jack’s coffin.
“And it’s the saddest thing I know.”
The room went quiet.
He pulled the microphone closer.
“About six months ago, Jack and I were watching this terrible movie in his room.”
A tiny smile appeared.
“He said it was a classic. It was not.”
A few of Jack’s friends laughed softly.
Theo continued.
“He’d just gotten back from another scan. His parents weren’t home yet.”
I looked at Daniel.
I remembered that scan.
The results had been bad.
Not hopeless. Not officially.
But bad enough that the doctor had started using phrases like “next-line treatment” and “managing expectations.”
Theo said, “Jack asked me if I’d speak at his funeral.”
The air left my chest.
Daniel sat down.
Theo looked toward us.
“I told him to shut up.”
His eyes filled.
“I was mad at him for even saying it.”
Then he laughed through his tears.
“I told him, ‘I’ll speak at your funeral when you show up to mine wearing a dress.’”
Several people smiled.
I didn’t.
I already knew where this was going.
Theo continued.
“Jack said, ‘Fine. Then you have to wear one to mine.’”
Theo looked down at the red fabric.
“I told him absolutely not.”
He paused.
“Then he said red.”
My hands began shaking.
“Specifically red. Because he said black makes me look like an undertaker.”
Someone behind me laughed and immediately started crying.
Theo’s voice weakened.
“I told him there wasn’t going to be a funeral.”
He stopped again.
This time he couldn’t hide the tears.
“I said he was going to get better.”
The room was completely silent.
“He said, ‘Probably.’”
Theo wiped his face with the back of his hand.
“But then he made me promise.”
I couldn’t breathe.
Jack had never told us.
Not once.
He had asked us whether his hair would grow back.
Whether he could still go to college.
Whether we’d let him travel if treatment worked.
He talked about the future so constantly that I assumed he believed in it as strongly as I needed to.
But six months before his death, my son had made his best friend promise what to wear to his funeral.
Theo said, “I thought if I didn’t promise, he’d think I was scared.”
He looked at Jack’s coffin.
“I was scared.”
Then he reached into the pocket of the dress.
Yes.
The stupid thing had pockets.
Jack would have appreciated that.
Theo took out a piece of paper.
“This is why I didn’t just ignore him.”
He held it up.
“Jack wrote it down.”
