natalie's funeral makes me want to chew glass. her eulogy barely being a minute long. her mother only remembering her as a small child, not as the teenager she was or the woman she became. her mother's only positive memory of her being a night on the swings when she was little. the memory conveying not the joy the two once managed to share together, or how simple things used to be, but about how much nat took, how demanding she was. shaming her, criticizing her, even in death. how no one, not even van, the storyteller---who made a face at how abrupt nat's eulogy was---stood up to share something nice about her after her mom left the stand. how the two yellowjackets closest to her before she died didn't make it to the reception---misty, because it would solidify the fact that nat was "really gone"*; lottie, because she was locked away. how the later toast in her supposed honor was quickly mutated into a toast centering shauna and tai's guilt and self-pity. how nat was used and discarded again, her role as leader and guide twisted into something impersonal and consumable. how everyone (except misty!) denies responsibility for her death. how nat's story was warped into a cautionary tale, rather than remembered as the tragedy it is. how she is now permanently confined to the role of provider and caretaker. she might not be physically consumed as jackie was, but she is similarly denied her personhood, valued only by what her death can provide, and crowned as a martyr for a sacrifice she never even made
