Mobati (candlelight)

I walked over to the other side of the room and stared out my window. “When’s does the service start?”

I heard Jack moving before he said “it starts in 40 minutes. It’s at the amphitheatre at the park”

I turned walked into my closet and stared at all my clothes hanging there trying to figure out what I should be wearing.

Finally I grabbed a black skirt and a simple dark gray top and without saying a word headed into the bathroom to shower and change. When I came out a few minutes later my room was empty but I could hear Alex and Jack down the hall in the guest bedroom talking. As I grabbed a brush and started brushing my hair, I felt someone looking at me and turned around to see Alex standing there changed and freshly showered wearing dark pants and a shirt.

Saying nothing I went back to brushing my hair while Alex silently stood there. After I finished getting ready, Alex moved to side silently to let me pass and closed the door behind me. Jack was coming out of his room also changed and we all walked downstairs silently, as if saying a word would make everything fall apart.

At the bottom of the stairs, I saw Merry, Alisha, Caleb and Katie waiting for me, dressed similarly to the boys and I. Jack went into the living room to tell our parents that we were leaving as we all headed outside and piled into my parents SUV. The drive seemed to take forever but was in reality only a few minutes. We parked a few blocks away at another friend AJ’s house, who was waiting for us so we could all down together.

As we got into a seeing distance of the church we all stopped and stared. There were literally over a hundred people milling around, talking quietly and somberly. There were hugs and tears and grief was in the air.

Someone spotted us and a few people separated from the crowd and walked towards. It took me a moment to realize that it was Aryan, Jacob, Karina and…and Kayla. I felt Alex’s arm come around my waist in a brief squeeze before he let me go as I was engulfed in hugs from those four.

All of us held hands as we walked towards to giant group of people where we were immediately drowning in hugs and “I’m so sorry’s”.

Since no one really had a plan for what we were going to do, we ended up lighting the candles that everyone had brought until the whole amphitheatre was glowing and flickering. Everyone pushed and told me to say something and before I knew it I found myself standing in the middle facing everyone.

As I tried to think of something to say I found my head going back to the first day I met Kevin and knew what I had to say.

I looked up at everyone and couldn’t get the words out of my mouth so I looked down at the candle in my hand and started talking. “Kevin is…ugh…was one of the craziest, smartest, funniest and most amazing people I’ve ever known. He was so in tune with me sometimes that I felt like he was reading my mind. I remember the first time we met…”