The late April sunshine bounces off the bluey black denseness of the hearse that is too vast to hold the coffin despite the array of mockingly bright blooms swamping it.

A coffin that is sickeningly small. Pure white with brass hinges, carried on the shoulders of four family friends, when in truth it could be carried by fewer. One strong pair of arms would do.

Tears stream down their faces; four burly men who try to outdrink each other every Friday night. Four men’s men that burp and fart and congratulate each other.

But now they weep and make no effort to hide it. It’s acceptable. They will not be judged.

The church is deathly silent as they reverently traverse the aisle to the top of the space. Despite their tears, grief, and sadness there is great concentration. The coffin is small and light, no match for the combined strength of mates who met on the rugby pitch. But who would want to trip, stumble over the raised edge of a carpet, or entangle their foot in the strap of a handbag spilling carelessly out of the aisle?

Who would want to drop the coffin? Who would want that as their claim to fame? Who would want to be the subject of that drunken Friday night anecdote?

And as I well know, the tighter you try to hang on to something, the more you focus on it, the easier it can slip from your grasp.

Every gaze follows the small white box as it passes by. There is something repulsive about such a tiny burial coffin. But what repulses also fascinates, I realise as I watch people crane their necks from the far sides of the church. People want to see the incongruous oddity. The macabre short journey of life and death.

A strangled sob sounds somewhere behind me, but most people’s horror has rendered them mute.

The sorrowful glances slide from the coffin to me.

I don’t react to their stares or the sympathetic expressions, held too long in case I glance their way and they can show me how deeply they mourn. I don’t wish to share their grief and I’m not willing to share mine.

Mine has become useful. It is a living breathing entity that has changed in shape, size, and colour. It no longer weighs me down like a burden, it feeds me. It is like the air that I breathe. It enters my body as oxygen, something pure, something good. But then it transforms and expels as something different, poisonous.

Eventually, the crowd follows morosely on the short walk to the corner of the cemetery that is filled with colour, flags, cuddly toys, angels and cherubs.

Mourners are speaking in hushed tones behind me. I know that they cling to each other for support. Arms entwined as they make slow respectful steps.

The minister appears at the grave, a hole more suited for a decent-sized tree. Not a life. A plant, a bush, but not a life.

He reads from the bible as the coffin is lowered.

The sobs behind me turn to grief-stricken howls, shrieks that could not be contained inside now set free to disperse amongst the trees.

And it is done.

The coffin is in the ground.

Hands land all over my back, reassuring, comforting. Some brief, some linger.

Everyone wants to offer something, some indication, a token of their grief. They want me to know. They want me to share. They offer it as a gift of their own humanity.

And I don’t give a fuck.

My comfort doesn’t come from them.

Neither does it come from the knowledge of eternal peace.

It doesn’t come from the platitudes and clichés, the well-wishers, cards, flowers or the phone calls. It doesn’t come from the short time we had together.

It comes from the rage. It comes from the white, hot anger that burns in every pore of my body, every atom of my being.

My comfort comes from the plan.

My comfort comes from the knowledge.

The knowledge that everyone responsible will die.