Beneath a gray and grieving sky,
To honor one who knew the sea
As home. As fate. As destiny.
With a steady hand and fearless sight,
He steered us safely through the night.
Through crashing waves and raging gales,
His courage never once grew pale.
He taught us how to face the storm,
To hold the wheel, to keep it warm,
To trust the stars when hope seemed thin,
And find our one true north within.
Now tides have called him far from shore,
To sail on seas we’ve never explored.
But in each wind and with rolling foam,
We hear his voice guide us home.
Fair winds, Captain. Rest your soul.
You’ve reached the final harbor whole.”
His voice wobbles as he mumbles his way through the eccentric poem. When he is finally done, he pulls a small bottle of sand from his pocket and gently sprinkles the contents onto the closed casket. The sand immediately slides off the polished lid and onto the floor.
Fantastic.
I make a mental note to sweep the contents of the beach out of the parlor later. There is no way the house is okay with this kind of treatment. A shutter outside the window creaks as if it could hear my thoughts and wanted to voice its discomfort.
Another relative approaches, her tail almost knocking over the podium. She unwraps what appears to be a ship’s bell. The copper is oxidized, so it looks like it was actually used on a boat at some point.
The beta woman rings the bell three times. Loudly.
DING!
DING!
DING!
My ears are ringing by the time she finishes. Hopefully, if Sunshine is sleeping, it didn’t wake him up. My pheromones flare at the thought of him soft and warm and vulnerable in his bed right upstairs. Wet from his heat. Needy for an alpha. Not just any alpha. Me.
No, I need to focus.
I clear my throat and step forward for the committal portion, flipping to the short script before reading what Sunshine wanted to say.
“As we prepare to say goodbye,” I say, raising my voice over what now sounds like a hurricane barreling through the small speaker, “we should remember that the ocean is vast, unpredictable, and sometimes scary, but there will always be a lighthouse to guide us ashore.”
Somewhere in the room, someone sobs loudly, crying out as if in immense pain.
