Jake Otteson

I mean, my friend Frank is there with a hat that has cartoonishly gigantic feathers, but he's taken it off out of respect.

And the guy playing Sir Francis Drake is wearing these, like, pumpkin pants, and we're just a bunch of pretend people in a pretend graveyard in the middle of a Renaissance festival having a serious ceremony.

And Michael puts the ashes in the hole as my friend Andy starts to sing Parting Glass, which is a traditional Irish funeral song.

It goes...

Of all the comrades ever I've had, they're sorry for my going away.

And I invite everybody, if they'd like, to take a handful of dirt and place it into the hole to say their individual goodbyes.

When it comes to my turn, I think about Donna.

And the gift she had, how in her bright blue eyes you would see mischief dancing.

And when she looked at you or she looked at a whole audience, you felt like you were part of her family.

And now here we all were.

And I took my shovel and I covered the rest of the hole.

And then one of the women with us, who was a long time fairgoer, picked up a stone and placed it in the middle of that circle.

And she said, there, now it looks like a boob.

which I know is a terribly inappropriate thing at a funeral, but I am telling you that is exactly the kind of joke that Donna would make.

And we are laughing because Donna is laughing with us.

And I am in the middle of these people.

These are my people, these people that take being silly seriously.

And I realized I had come to the Renaissance Fair like a pilgrim to a shrine seeking this divine inspiration that was gonna fix me.

But life doesn't work like that.

You know, one day you're feeling like you're never going to fit in, and the next day you're standing in a circle of love.