“Ironman”
Winter Park, FL
By: Sarah Flores
I have always thought, growing up as a small child, that
funerals were sad events in which you traveled to say goodbye to your loved ones
and commemorated the legacy that they left behind; this is based on the fact
that I had only ever been to one, my great grandfathers’. At my great
grandfather’s funeral, my family and I went to the funeral home where a memorial
service was held, and everyone sat down to listen to others speak about my
great grandfather and to mourn him. I couldn’t help but notice, at twelve years
old, that at the end of every bench in that room sat a box of tissues. When I
thought of tissues and what they were used for, I thought of wiping away tears
or blowing a runny nose, and that day nearly everyone in the entire room used
those tissues. Somehow something so soft and soothing held a connotation of
sadness and sickness. I was heartbroken seeing everyone in that room crying
with a tissue squeezed tightly in their hands, even my grandfather, who I had
never seen cry before. These tissues were all ruined; they became dampened with
tears and grief, and after that day I didn’t want to see a tissue for a long
time. It wasn’t until the second funeral I attended, as silly as it sounds, that
my outlook on tissues changed forever.
The only other funeral that I have ever been to was this
past June for our close family friend, Dale Kelley. Once again, I sat in a room
at the funeral home with my family and at the end of the bench there sat more
tissues. Except this time was different, this time everyone in the room wasn’t
crying into the tissues. To Dale’s family he was known as Ironman, he was their
superhero. Instead of tears and mourning, people laughed, people told happy
stories about Dale, and posters of Ironman were set up all around the room, we
were all there to celebrate his life. As I sat there and watched this beautiful
scene, another close family friend to Dale proceeded to walk around the room
and hand out more tissues. These tissues were also different, they were
individually packaged with an “Avengers” graphic wrapped all the way around
them, and in that graphic front and center was Ironman. I put these tissues into
my purse and to this very day they have never been opened and have never left
my purse; I carry the “Ironman” tissues with me almost everywhere.
One of the definitions I found on the internet when I
searched “Iron man” comes from the Cambridge Dictionaries Online and it says:
Iron Man: “A person of great physical strength and the
ability to continue doing something difficult for a long time”
Dale Kelley fought lung
cancer for nearly 3 and a half years, and never once did he complain, never
once did he share his burden with others, and never once did he treat others differently.
Instead, Dale was always interested in you, he always wanted to know what was
going on in your life and to know that you were living happily and healthy.
This is the significance that I now relate to tissues. Every time I look into
my purse fumbling for keys or my wallet I happen to cross the package of the
Iron Man tissues and I am reminded that I am just as strong as Iron Man and that
I can push on despite the difficulties that life carries every day. Tissues no
longer insinuated sorrow and malaise; instead they suggested hope and
resilience. From time to time I look into my purse and I see Iron Man, I see
Dale and I smile.
