THE STORY
I’ve always thought weddings and funerals are basically the same thing.
Everyone dresses better than usual, cries in public and tells slightly exaggerated stories about the person everyone came to see.
There’s usually bad coffee afterwards too.
Anyway, I was invited to a wedding somewhere out west. I’d driven for about three hours, my phone was dead and I’d lost the actual invitation. Apparently there were two churches with almost exactly the same name within ten minutes of one another—which feels irresponsible.
I saw a group of well-dressed people disappearing into a little white chapel, so I followed them inside.
I was late, obviously.
Everyone was wearing black, which I thought was pretty sophisticated for a wedding. I’d worn a half-finished white hat because it was the only clean thing I owned that looked remotely formal. It still had the big temporary stitches around the crown, but from a distance I thought they looked intentional.
Most of my mistakes become intentional if no one points them out quickly enough.
I slipped into the back row beside a little girl wearing an oversized black dress and an old woman who smelled strongly of lavender.
The ceremony had already started.
A man was talking about Margaret.
Apparently Margaret was a wonderful mother, a loyal wife and a devoted grandmother. I thought this was a bit excessive for the bride’s introduction, but maybe she’d lived a full life. He then mentioned that Margaret had been married to Clive for forty-seven years.
I thought, Jesus, Clive has moved on quickly.
Then I saw the coffin.
I don’t know how I’d missed it. It was right there at the front, surrounded by flowers. I think my brain had decided it was some kind of rustic table.
I should’ve left.
But everyone was already seated and there’s no dignified way to sneak out of a funeral wearing a big white hat. So I stayed.
The little girl beside me clearly wasn’t interested in the speeches. She took the funeral program, drew a noughts-and-crosses grid over Margaret’s face and handed me the pen.
I drew an X.
She drew an O.
We went back and forth until I blocked her winning move. She looked at the game, looked at me, then drew a little red heart in the middle and declared herself the winner.
Kids are amazing like that. They change the rules when they’re losing.
Adults call it personal growth.
When the service ended, the old woman beside me squeezed my hand. I think she mistook my sweating for grief.
“How did you know Margaret?” she asked.
I should’ve told her the truth.
Instead, I panicked and said we’d met years ago in Byron.
Apparently Margaret had never been to Byron.
I said maybe it was Brisbane.
She hadn’t been there either.
So I changed direction and said I might’ve known a different Margaret. But by then the woman had tears in her eyes and was telling me how beautiful it was that Margaret had touched so many lives without anyone knowing.
I’d gone too far.
There was no coming back.
Outside the chapel, the family were handing everyone a dried rose and a small piece of clear quartz. Margaret loved flowers and collected crystals. The old woman pressed them into my hands and told me Margaret would want me to have them.
I didn’t know Margaret.
But for some reason, I felt terrible refusing.
So I took them.
I eventually found the correct wedding about ten minutes down the road. I’d missed the entire ceremony but arrived just in time for the alcohol, which is probably the most important part anyway.
My friend asked where the hell I’d been.
“A funeral,” I said.
He laughed and handed me a beer.
I didn’t explain.
I had nowhere to put the rose, so I tied it to the hat with a bit of string. The crystal kept stabbing me through my pocket, so I tucked it underneath one of those big temporary stitches around the crown.
It actually looked pretty good.
For the rest of the wedding, nobody knew I was carrying around the memory of a dead woman I’d never met.
Later that night, the bride asked about the rose.
I told her the story.
She said it was the most romantic thing she’d ever heard.
Her new husband said it was completely fucked.
They’d been married for less than six hours and were already disagreeing about the important things.
I don’t know if they’re still together.
I also don’t know much about Margaret. I know she loved crystals, had a granddaughter who cheated at noughts and crosses and apparently never visited Byron.
But I kept the rose.
I kept the quartz too.
The flower eventually dried and curled in on itself, but somehow became more beautiful. The temporary stitches stayed because I realised I liked seeing how the hat had been put together.
I copied the little girl’s game onto the side and wrote MAKE BEAUTIFUL MISTAKES across the front.
Maybe I stole something from that funeral.
Or maybe I gave Margaret’s memory somewhere else to live.
I don’t know.
What I do know is that the hat wouldn’t exist if my phone hadn’t died, if two churches didn’t have the same stupid name, or if I’d possessed enough courage to quietly walk out when I saw the coffin.
So, dearly beloved, we are gathered here today because I went to the wrong fucking chapel.
KM