“Good-bye may seem forever. Farewell is like the end, but in my heart is the memory and there you will always be.”― Walt Disney
the church and sat down, I clutched my notes. I was in the second pew right behind Mr. and Mrs. Shay. They quietly held hands and stared at the casket a couple of feet away. You can do this was on repeat in my head. I really wanted to go home, crawl into bed, and stay there for about a month. But that was no way to honor Leigh’s life. Giving her eulogy was the last thing I could do for her, and I was going to do it well. Hopefully, I could keep it together and not break down.
My heart was breaking watching Leigh’s parents, her aunt, her friends and neighbors, everyone that had turned out because Leigh was a person who would be missed terribly. She left a very noticeable gap in the world. The pastor spoke about Leigh growing up and how God could only be apart from some people for a very short while before He had to call them home. He was trying to provide comfort. He did, in a way, but it was a small comfort.
“Leigh’s best friend growing up, Tess McCabe, is going to say a few words,” the pastor said.
For a second, my breath stopped in my chest, and I froze. Goose bumps broke out over my body, and it felt like every nerve I had stood on end. Then, just as fast as I felt the anxiety attack coming on, it was gone, and a calmness washed over me. I took a deep breath and walked up to the podium at the front of the church.
Standing behind it, I looked down at my notes and made sure I was calm, and my emotions were under control.
The packed church silently stared back at me. Every pew was full, and people were standing in the back. Friends we went to school with from preschool to high school, Benny, Jack and his family, our teachers, our high school principal, coworkers from Leigh’s job, and, of course, Leigh’s family. Everyone had turned out on this sunny Saturday to pay their respects and lay Leigh to rest.
“Wow, Leigh was so loved in life,” I said while I looked around at everyone. It wasn’t how I planned to start but, staring into the sea of faces, it was so true.
“Leigh and I met at my grandmother’s house when she used to babysit Leigh. At least, that’s the earliest memory I have of us together. It seems like we’ve always known each other. We used to tell everyone we were sisters. When they would point out that we looked absolutely nothing alike, we would just say “so,” shrug our shoulders, and run off. Even then, on some level, I think we knew we had a bond that was special. A bond that would see us through wins and losses, first crushes, arguments, bad breakups, and even life-changing events.”
I paused and took a deep breath as the memories of my parents’ funeral flashed through my head.
“Leigh was the good one,” I said, making air quotes and rolling my eyes. “I know most of you think any trouble we got into was my fault.” I laughed a little. Some others in the church laughed with me, and even Mrs. Shay gave me a small smile.
“Don’t underestimate the brilliance that was Leigh, though. I can take credit for all the things we did that just did not work out as intended. Riding the wagon down the big sledding hill on the Hallowell farm comes to mind. Leigh ended up with a broken arm; I had a knot on my forehead; and I think Jack got grounded for the rest of the summer. Trying to get out and go to the carnival without our parents when we were eleven was another one that didn’t go as planned. We didn’t make it to the end of the driveway before my mom caught us.”
I paused as some more people laughed.
“But Leigh had her moments too. She was just smarter about it than the rest of us. When she came up with something, she thought it through and planned it out. We had a much better chance of success when Leigh was running the show. Most of the time. There’s always that one time for everyone when things don’t go as planned.”
I paused here and took a breath. I could see curiosity on some faces. Jack’s mom leaned over and asked Jack what I was talking about. He shrugged. I hoped she didn’t ground him again after she heard the story. Jack was a grown man, but I’m pretty sure that would not matter to his mom.
“Okay, so we’ve kept this secret for over 10 years, but I think we can finally tell the story, as it is too good not to share. We were camping out on my parent’s farm. Leigh and I were about twelve, I think. Jack may have just turned thirteen and Benny was maybe fifteen. It was the last weekend of summer before school started and hot as, well, H-E-double hockey sticks as Leigh would say when we were younger.”
“Benny was being a moody teenager about having to be out there with us in that heat. My parents told him he had to watch us.” I looked at Benny and smiled, and he rolled his eyes at me.
“We were all hot, but it was the last camp out of the season, and no one wanted to go in the house. We were sitting around trying to think of something to do that wouldn’t make us hotter than we already were. And it was Leigh who said the words, ‘I wish we could go take a dip in the lake.’ That sounded like a brilliant idea to four kids sitting around on a swelteringly hot night in August.”
“For those who don’t know, ‘the lake’ was a man-made lake the Hallowells had dug out and kept clean on their farm for the boys to swim in when they were kids. We all agreed we should have had the campout at the Hallowells, but it was too late now. It was a good five miles down the road."
“I’m pretty sure it was Benny who pointed out that going through the fields was a much shorter distance. We were discussing the merits of walking there and back again when Leigh mentioned the tractor. Yes friends, keep in mind, this was our Leigh’s idea. Not mine. Just want to emphasize that again.”
Everyone in the church smiled. I took a deep breath and kept going.
“’What if we take the tractor?’ Leigh says. We stopped talking for a second and thought about it and all came to the same conclusion. Leigh was brilliant. Taking the tractor was a great idea. Do I need to tell you now that taking the tractor did not go well?”
More laughter from the pews.
Mr. And Mrs. Shay listened with rapt attention. They had never heard this story before. No one had. That’s why I wanted to share it today.
“Those of you who remember my parents’ old farm know the barn was actually not very close to the house. We thought it would be far enough away that we could get the tractor out without waking up anyone in the house. And we did. Benny had it up and running and out of the barn in a matter of minutes. The fact that we could probably walk faster than the tractor was going to be able to go carrying all of us didn’t occur to us or really matter anymore.”
As I told the story, I could see it all happening again, like it was yesterday. Leigh was smiling and laughing while she joked around with everyone. Thinking about her that night, it occurred to me she might have had a small crush on Benny. She wasn’t blatantly flirting or anything but, remembering it now, she was very attentive to whatever he had to say. I had never noticed it before, and she had never said anything. She probably knew nothing would ever come of it; it was her own private fantasy she kept to herself. Made me wonder how many other things I never noticed or didn’t pay enough attention to. But I guess we all have some private thoughts and feelings we don’t share with anyone else.
“We all piled onto the tractor around Benny. Don’t ask me how we all fit on there, but we made it work. Benny headed through our field toward the Hallowell’s farm. I don’t think any of us gave a proper amount of thought to the terrain that we were trying to cut through. As kids, we had run through those fields and knew them like the back of our hand. But, trying to take a tractor across them in the dark, well, that was a different story. I think we would’ve made it had it not been for all the rain we had earlier that week. A lot of rain. So, we were going through muddy fields and then we get to what is usually a creek. After nearly a week of heavy rain, it was more like a small river.”
I glanced at my brother sitting with Jack, TJ, Nick, and Max. He had his head down like he wished he could sink into the pew and disappear. Jack and his brothers chuckled. Benny lifted his head and caught my eye, then smiled, shaking his head at me. He knew I was going to tell this story, but he seemed to have forgotten what a starring role he had in it.
“We were not to be deterred, though,” I continued. “And if I remember right, it was Leigh who said we could make it through. After all, we’d crossed that creek a thousand times before on a tractor, she had reasoned. So much in fact that you could see the path where we always crossed in our flashlights’ beams that were lighting the way for Benny. The water was just higher, that’s all,” I said with a roll of my eyes.
“Oh good grief,” Mrs. Shay said from the first pew while shaking her head. Mr. Shay smiled through the tears running down his face.
“To my brother’s credit, I think he tried to express some misgivings about this idea, but we gave him a wrath of crap about chickening out. Hindsight, being what it is, he may have been right that it wasn’t a good idea.”
“Might have been right?” Benny said incredulously from the pew.
“I think we can all agree now that it wasn’t a good idea, Tess,” T.J. chimed in. I saw his mom shoot him a look that could've peeled paint off a car. I hadn’t gotten to the part that Jack’s brothers played in this story yet. She’s now wondering how many of her children were involved in this scheme. The answer - all of them.
“Alright, alright, enough from the peanut gallery,” I said as people murmured about the merits of trying to go through with it.
“We annoyed Benny enough that he went against his better judgment and continued on,” I said, pausing a moment for dramatic effect. “He probably shouldn’t have done that.” People were laughing and Mrs. Hallowell looked like she would skin all of her boys - my brother included - alive after the memorial. It didn’t matter that this happened over ten years ago, and all the boys were now grown men.
“Needless to say, we got stuck and when I say stuck, I mean we were STUCK GOOD. The front tires of the tractor wouldn’t go up the other side of the creek. Benny tried to back up and the wheels just spun in the mud. We all jumped off the tractor and tried to help him by pushing it forward. The front tires just got stuck deeper and wouldn’t move. Luckily, it wasn’t actually in the creek, it was kind of straddling it. So, the front tires were on one side and the back tires were on the other. By this point, we were all soaking wet and muddy and knew we needed help.”
I noticed Jack’s brothers in the pews, actively avoiding their mother’s gaze at this point of the story.
“So, Jack and Benny ran the rest of the way to the Hallowell’s farm and got Jack’s brothers,” I continued. “Leigh and I waded in the creek and had a great time until they finally got back. They brought an old red wagon filled with two bales of straw. Jack used to pull Leigh and me around in that same wagon when were kids. In fact, it was the same red wagon that we were riding down the hill in when Leigh broke her arm. All of them were hot and sweaty in this heat while Leigh and I were soaking wet and laughing. Looking back, I can see why they may have been slightly annoyed.”
That got outright laughter from everyone. Even Jack’s mom smiled while she rolled her eyes.
“Leigh got them smiling soon by just being Leigh. She started goofing around and splashing them with water to cool them off. Eventually, we were all splashing each other and dripping in creek water. Leigh was great at making the best of anything. She could make anything fun. That was her gift. One of her gifts, anyway. Once we were all good and drenched, we did something about the stupid tractor. We spread the hay over the mud and stuffed it under the tires. There was a pretty intense debate over whether we should push the tractor forward over the creek and onto the road, where someone might see us and tell our parents, or try to push the tractor back and go through the fields the way we came.”
“Leigh was the tiebreaker. Jack, T.J., and I wanted to go back the way we came. Benny, Max, and Nick said we should go forward and take the road back. Leigh, as was her normal style, thought it through and weighed the merits of each option. In the end, she decided that looking at the terrain, we were more likely to move the tractor forward than back, and given the time of night, we were not likely to run into anyone. At least not anyone that would rat us out.”
“She was right. Unless you were there, no one here knew this story until today. We got the tractor out and back home. We even had time to rinse it off and put it back in the barn, none the worse for wear. Everyone went back to their own homes and rooms except for Leigh, who came with me and put on clean clothes so that when the parents got up the next morning, we looked clean and innocent. Me having muddy clothes in the laundry was common enough that my mom wouldn’t question it.”
“So, we got away with it. For over ten years. But, it’s a great story. I wanted to share it with everyone here. It had all the elements that made Leigh, Leigh. She was a little daring, very fun-loving, smarter than most, a great goofball, and the very best friend anyone could hope for. In a tight spot, you wanted her on your side. During your darkest days, when you didn’t think you would ever find the light again, she would stick by you. She would throw you a rope to lead you out of the darkness and, if you threw the rope back at her, she would just throw it again. And again. And again. She was relentless and would never give up on the people she cared about… even when they had given up on themselves.”
“Most of all, Leigh loved life. And she would not want us, any of us, to forget to live because we were grieving for her. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem called “A Psalm of Life,” that I think Leigh would want us to remember as we leave here today.
A Psalm of Life
Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real!
Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.
Art is long, and
Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sand of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.”
I paused and took a breath at the end of the poem. I hope it affected everyone listening as it did me. To me, it screamed that your life is not over. There is still work to be done. I knew firsthand how easy it is to get lost in your grief and forget to live. I didn’t want anyone here, especially Leigh’s parents, to go down that same dark road.
“Leigh, I will forever be grateful that you picked me to sit next to and share your crayons with at my grandmother’s little round kitchen table all those summers ago when we were both still in pigtails. Every time I try to put some curls in my hair, I will think of you. I will remember our Brat Pack binge girl’s nights, tubing on the river, too many campouts to count, Sunday church followed by brownies and movies at Ms. Ruby’s, Babysitter Club books, Harry Potter movies, and arguing every Halloween over who we should dress up as.”
The room was blurry from the tears streaking down my face. Just then, an image of an annoyed Leigh telling me I was making a wreck of my makeup flashed through my head. I tried to wipe my eyes as I faced her coffin.
“I love you. You were my best friend and sister. Though unfairly short, yours was a life well lived. Please be at peace, my friend.”