The funeral

Jill's funeral was yesterday. It was a good service. Apparently Jill actually had a fairly large family, or a lot of extended family. The service was crowded. I had a sort of horrible moment when we were walking to the grave- almost every man was wearing a black suit and tie. Twenty or more black suits. But they were all human, of course.

Jess and I cried through the whole thing, and Christian held our hands the whole time. None of us got up to talk about her, but we all talked to her mom afterwards, and she said we were a comfort, that she knew how much we loved Jill, and she was glad she'd had such good friends. That set me off again- I started sobbing and apologizing, and her mom hugged me and said it was okay.

After the service I said goodbye and got dinner and headed home. Jill's mom offered to let me stay with her, but I couldn't face seeing Jill's house without her in it, so I drove back to Flagstaff, into the rain, instead. But when I was walking across the parking lot to the Subway where I ate dinner, I saw that X symbol written in chalk on the sidewalk, and below it, a picture of a fish. I took a picture, I'll put it up later, when I find my camera cord.

I was understandably freaked out by the symbol appearing like that. I'm sure there's a good explanation for it. It's a game on the internet, so of course other people knew about it. But the strangest part is that it didn't make me frightened or upset, at least not after that initial shock. It makes no sense, but when I looked at it, I felt...soothed. Safe. I don't know why, and I'm not sure I entirely trust that feeling, but I drove home and went to bed and, for the first time since Jill died, I slept through the whole night.

And today I'm going to make a snow angel.