Kari's Funeral, Take 2

     One of the embarrassing things about using someone's computer while they're asleep is that when an alarm goes off, you have to get out IMMEDIATELY.
     Martin, apparently, had a late night date. I heard his alarm going off as I was making that last entry, and he started to stir, so I had to get out.
     I waited, but he didn't come home. He was out all. Night. Long. Which is rather unlike Martin, but I guess everyone has someone out there, right?
     I fast-forwarded to tonight, and now that Martin is asleep, I'm back. So, I guess I should continue the story of Kari's funeral, and everything that happened after.

    “I don’t want to take up the entire funeral talking. If you knew her, you know how good she was.”
    A pause. I moved in closer to her as she spoke, and looked her straight in the eyes. I was surprised to see absolute truth there. As fas she knew, she was telling the truth, and she believed it.
    Usually, you see a little bit of something hidden in their eyes. Something that speaks to the real truth of the matter. Not this time, though.
    This time was absolute truth. Her aura said so, too. She honestly believed this dead girl was an angel made flesh.
    She stepped down from the pulpit, approached the coffin. She kissed her fingers, and gently placed them on the lid, then wiped away a tear. She went back to her seat, and slumped into the arms of the giuy sitting next to her. His arm slipped around her, and gently stroked her hair. The girl’s sobs mingled with all the other sounds of mourning in the room.
    There, dammit. I said I wasn’t going to that. Alright. Moving on.
    The next person up was a lady in her mid-thirties who was dry-eyed, but just barely. She took the podium, looked over the crowd, down at the coffin.
    “Kari... was special. You don’t need me to tell you that. She gave everything she had to help you, to make you happy, whether it hurt her or not.
    “When we were in high school, we both liked the same guy. Will Olsen. Kari probably cared a little more for him than I did since they had dated briefly. He was her first kiss, and, really, her first boyfriend. I’m not sure what lead to them breaking up, but they did, and I became his new love interest.
    “Except that Will was a guy, and I couldn’t figure out how he felt about me. I thought he liked me, but he was always talking about Kari, and he almost never called me or anything.
    There. Right there. Tiny little flicker in the aura. She’s going to lie about something. That little flicker. It's like the little signs before an earthquake. It’s a warning, and I’ve learned to recognize it.
    “Kari and I knew each other enough to say hi to, but we weren’t friends. It sounds crass to say it, but she knew I was her... um... successor, just as I knew she was my predecessor.
    “So I approached her one day to ask her a favor. Would she find out for me how Will felt about me?”
    Another pre-flicker. Getting closer to it. 
    “And she did. A few days later, she came up to me and told me that Will was definitely attracted to me, and she said she was happy for me and wished us the best of luck.”
    There. The aura completely changed, from a blue to green shot through with purple.
    “I smiled and hugged her, thanked her, told her I was sure we would be, and we parted company. She was... saddened by it, but she was happy to be the bearer of good news as far as that was concerned. She was always more concerned with the happiness of others than about her own, and giving me my happiness was what was important to her.”
    The purple and green faded back to the deep blue of her aura. She was past the lies now and moving on.
    “And that was Kari. She was a good person, and she will be missed. By everyone.” The young lady stepped off the dais, and transferred a kiss from her lips to the coffin via fingertips and sat down.
    That made me feel a little better. That lie. No one is that perfect.