It’s no longer horrible
Spring had come much earlier this year. Not the date, that wasn’t possible, but the weather. The temperatures in March were what they normally got in late May or early June. It was great. The long yawn was over. Flowers were pushing through, bushes were budding and the grass was getting green on both sides of the fence. Fat momma robins were all around and the rabbits looked surprised at the vast expanse of their dinner table. John’s yard was ready to be opened. That’s gardening talk for raking, fertilizing, edging, cutting back ornamental grasses, setting up the birdbath and hosing the deck and patio. Once he finished those, he searched for reasons to be outside. If he could speak robin, he’d offer to find worms. Spring was like the opening page of a great story. The plot changing every day. Stimulating characters all around. Spring vitalized his soul. It made John feel good.
He decided to play a joke on his daughter-in-law, Anne. He’d buried his son, Robert, 14 years ago when Robert was 21. Anne didn’t know John when his son died. She’d never met Robert. John had lovingly tended the grave from day one of his burial. Just like the lawn, it needed things done now that spring had arrived. It too needed to be opened. Anne was sitting on the couch next to his wife.
His wife asked, “Have you got plans for today? I figure you’ll want to get outside." She was right, he did.
“Yea, I think I’m going to open Robert’s grave,” John said nonchalantly. He looked at Anne and didn’t flinch.
She whipped her head around, eyes wide in fear and disgust. “You’re going to do what?”
“Open Robert’s grave. Ya’ know, pull weeds and stuff like that. I need to edge and put down mulch, just like I do when I open the
yard. I need to open his grave.” He smiled.
“You jerk,” Anne laughed. “That creeped me out.”
Off and on for fourteen years he’d visited his grave. Birthday, death day, holidays and sometimes just any old day. It was no longer tear streaming horrible, but never something anticipated with any kind of a good feeling. It was what it was. The hole which held his son’s body. Just like he’d done every spring since Robert was buried, he put the flat bladed shovel for edging, the weed popper for just that, and a pair of gardening gloves in his
trunk. The car was Robert’s car; still in good shape because John didn’t use it very often. When he wanted to spend time with Robert, he drove faraway roads, usually at night. It made him feel better.
A stop at the hardware store for a bag of mulch and he was on his way. His destination was Maple Hill Cemetery; ¾ mile north of route 28 off of route 15; directly across from the Kiper River. It was a pretty setting to put people in the ground. Not that they cared, but families did. Right hand turn, up the slope, veer left at the fork, down fifty yards on the left about half way across the field. His headstone was flat, so if someone came searching, it might take a while. Robert had been shot in the head, his body set on fire. At his funeral they had a closed casket.
The grave of George Armstrong and his wife, Emma, was on Robert’s right. The only reason he knew that was because he passed them getting to Robert. Their family did a good job with caretaking their grave. There was no one on his left. Some kind of drainage area. He didn’t keep track of who else was around. It’s said that people were buried with their feet facing west, head facing east. In Christianity, placing the body facing east will allow the dead to see the second coming of Jesus. That meant Robert’s head was at the top of his marker. John consciously avoided stepping on his headstone. Always did. Just didn’t seem right.
The day was crisp with temperatures in the low 50s. A sprinkling of clouds and a light breeze. True spring had arrived. He had on jeans, an untucked flannel shirt, work boots and a baseball cap he bought in Florida last year that said, “Smile,” inside a sun. Like most days, the cemetery was empty. A vast array of headstones lay in the field in a graph like system. There’s even organization in death. Some were well tended, others not. Who knows why. Perhaps there was no one left to do the detail work. Or, no one who cared. No judgment. Visiting a cemetery works for some and is incomprehensible to others.
Cemeteries can be disturbing. A representation of all that is gone, never to return. A body in decay. But still we keep the bodies. We either bury
or cremate. We just can’t seem to let them go. The city provided the basic service of cutting the grass and trimming around the vertical headstones, but if someone wanted a finer touch, it was up to them. Over the years John had maintained Robert’s grave in various ways. For the first seven years, he’d fertilized every spring. Robert’s was the greenest grass around. “Looking for Robert are you. Look for glowing green grass. He’s under that.” One year he fertilized so much and it rained so often the city couldn’t mow, so his grass grew a foot tall. When they could mow, they mowed around Robert’s grave. He brought his weed wacker and took care of it. Another year he tried to fertilize a heart into the grass. He used too much and killed it. He reseeded. They never said anything. Over the past few years, John focused on the immediate area around the grave and had stopped fertilizing. He no longer needed that as part of his healing.
John began edging the grass around the headstone and talking to Robert. “How are you sweetheart? We love you and miss you. I’m still
looking for work. Your brother’s doing fine at the bank. Your three month old nephew, Jeffrey, is doing great. You’d certainly be loving him up. Mom’s knees are bothering her again. Too many long hours at the store. Come visit sometime okay.” And then silence while he worked. He’d had many dreams involving Robert; 99% good, but he rarely saw Robert’s face. Maybe because of the fire, but who really knows why dreams are dreamt. His maintenance of the grave was akin to preserving the memory of their son and taking care of his home. He’s still Robert’s father and wanted to father him in any way he could. If pulling weeds and spreading mulch was the best he could do, he did that. As he took care of the earth where Robert was buried, he took care of him and took care of himself as well. Just his body was there. John took his life wherever he went. Years ago John understood that death did not take all of his son. Robert lived in many powerful and wonderful ways, but a top of the mountain life would never be John’s again. That was his sad reality. That hurt, but it was accepted.
He dug a shallow trench around the stone and laid in fresh mulch. Tan, cypress mulch. He liked the color and smell. Kind of like grave cologne. Eight years ago he took out the cement planter he’d placed there soon after the headstone went in. The planter was getting too heavy for him to lug back and forth from home. In its place he planted day lilies. They come back every year and need little help. They’re bright yellow and lively. A happy flower. They make it a good looking grave if there can be such a thing. They’d pushed up about six inches. Just the greenery so far. More mulch went on and arranged. He tamped down the ½ brick he kept there for tying a balloon on Robert’s birthday.The anniversary of his birth was never a horrible day for John. Sad, but not horribly sad. After all, that was the anniversary of the start of all the good stuff that is, not was, Robert. For many years he collected heart shaped rocks as a symbol of his love for Robert. At the top of his headstone, pushed into the earth was a good one; 5” at the wide part. A symbol of, “We love you.”
He looked at the headstone, focusing on “459.” Those numbers came to John years ago. If you look on the telephone, the numbers 4, 5, and 9, correspond to the letters, I, L and Y which correspond to the words, I Love You. Whenever John and Robert were with Robert’s friends and John got ready to leave, they’d turn to each other and say, “459 Dad.” And, “459 Son.” It was good. It made him happy thinking of those days.
He heard movement and looked up. Three adults and three kids were scattered about, eyes to the ground, searching for a headstone. It
reminded him of his other son’s beagle, Rex, and how he worked when he was outside. Nose to the ground, sniffing and searching; oblivious. The kids looked to be 9-10 years old. Kids are great, so “out there” and uninhibited. They came over, one walking through the day lilies. John said nothing. The adults kept a comfortable distance, probably thinking they’d be disrupting a sad time by engaging in conversation. He always liked to talk to fellow visitors. He liked to learn about their loved one and talk about Robert.
One boy asked, “Who’s this,” as he pointed at the headstone?
“That’s my son, who are you visiting?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, his voice slow and quiet. Older than his years.
One of the girls asked, “We’re looking for Molly Stewart. Do you know where she’s buried?”
“No I don’t. Her name isn’t familiar. How long ago did she die?”
An adult came close, but not too close. “She died about nine years ago when she was five.” Still nothing came to him.
“There’s a child’s cemetery near the front. She might be there.”
“Thanks.” She turned to leave.
The kids were sprinting from stone to stone, searching feverishly. They were “beagling” the area. One called out to no one, “There sure are a lot of dead people here.”
John laughed. One of the adults, a mom/grandma/aunt turned to him with a fearful expression that said, “I’m sorry. I’m sure she meant no offense.”
He thought, “Isn’t she cute and correct. Lots of dead people for sure.”
He went back to opening Robert’s grave. When he finished, he did his usual, which had become John’s tradition when leaving. He kissed his fingers and touched the ground in front of the headstone. “I love you Robert, come visit.” A sigh and he turned to leave. At the top of the small rise in the hill, stood the adults and kids, gathered around a grave. And then it dawned on him. He knew Molly. He remembered when she’d died. Molly was a little girl of five who died of a heart attack. It was in the papers. Some problem the parents knew nothing about. Very sudden, very sad. Her family’s blast to
the gut; the smash to their heart. Total devastation. Little Molly dead. Such a final word, dead.
Within days after Molly’s funeral, her gravesite filled with stuffed animals and flowers. A hanging basket on a shepherd’s hook. On his next visit to Robert’s a week later, he walked over. So much love and sorrow. So much sadness in a helpless way. What could anyone do but leave stuff that represented how much they cared about Molly and her grieving family. He knelt, kissed his fingers and touched the ground in front of her headstone.
In the months that followed he never saw anyone visit Molly. Perhaps they came when he wasn’t there, but he didn’t think so. The stuffed animals remained, covered in splattered mud. Flowers had blown a few feet away, now lifeless and crunchy. The hanging basket never watered; choked and dead. Grass had begun to grow across Molly’s headstone. Devastation visits in many ways. Coming to her grave, coming to visit the hole that swallowed sweet Molly must have been too much. He got that. He wished them well.
He thought about the day they buried Robert. John never saw Robert lowered into the ground. He didn’t remember it being presented as an option. Some find it too final, too “all over” when they see their child go into the earth, so they leave before it happens. Others do it as a form of a final
goodbye. Sometimes a shovel is passed around and anyone who wants to throws dirt on the casket. The dirt of, “See ya’ later. This is all I can do. I’m dying here.” Robert’s casket stayed on the device that took it out of the hearse. Metal with rollers, it perched above the hole like a fishing lure ready
to drop in a lake. On his next visit a few days later, there was just dirt. The hole was full. Full of Robert and full of ugly.
John shook himself free of that time. A memory that visits, but never stays for long. John doesn’t run from his sadness. He embraces it for what it is, his love for Robert. The joy is greater these days because John’s done his work and is now thankful for his healing. He’s a grateful father, but it doesn’t get any easier visiting the cemetery. It’s become tolerable.It’s an accepted destination. It’s no longer horrible. After all, it’s Robert.
Spring had come much earlier this year. Not the date, that wasn’t possible, but the weather. The temperatures in March were what they normally got in late May or early June. It was great. The long yawn was over. Flowers were pushing through, bushes were budding and the grass was getting green on both sides of the fence. Fat momma robins were all around and the rabbits looked surprised at the vast expanse of their dinner table. John’s yard was ready to be opened. That’s gardening talk for raking, fertilizing, edging, cutting back ornamental grasses, setting up the birdbath and hosing the deck and patio. Once he finished those, he searched for reasons to be outside. If he could speak robin, he’d offer to find worms. Spring was like the opening page of a great story. The plot changing every day. Stimulating characters all around. Spring vitalized his soul. It made John feel good.
He decided to play a joke on his daughter-in-law, Anne. He’d buried his son, Robert, 14 years ago when Robert was 21. Anne didn’t know John when his son died. She’d never met Robert. John had lovingly tended the grave from day one of his burial. Just like the lawn, it needed things done now that spring had arrived. It too needed to be opened. Anne was sitting on the couch next to his wife.
His wife asked, “Have you got plans for today? I figure you’ll want to get outside." She was right, he did.
“Yea, I think I’m going to open Robert’s grave,” John said nonchalantly. He looked at Anne and didn’t flinch.
She whipped her head around, eyes wide in fear and disgust. “You’re going to do what?”
“Open Robert’s grave. Ya’ know, pull weeds and stuff like that. I need to edge and put down mulch, just like I do when I open the
yard. I need to open his grave.” He smiled.
“You jerk,” Anne laughed. “That creeped me out.”
Off and on for fourteen years he’d visited his grave. Birthday, death day, holidays and sometimes just any old day. It was no longer tear streaming horrible, but never something anticipated with any kind of a good feeling. It was what it was. The hole which held his son’s body. Just like he’d done every spring since Robert was buried, he put the flat bladed shovel for edging, the weed popper for just that, and a pair of gardening gloves in his
trunk. The car was Robert’s car; still in good shape because John didn’t use it very often. When he wanted to spend time with Robert, he drove faraway roads, usually at night. It made him feel better.
A stop at the hardware store for a bag of mulch and he was on his way. His destination was Maple Hill Cemetery; ¾ mile north of route 28 off of route 15; directly across from the Kiper River. It was a pretty setting to put people in the ground. Not that they cared, but families did. Right hand turn, up the slope, veer left at the fork, down fifty yards on the left about half way across the field. His headstone was flat, so if someone came searching, it might take a while. Robert had been shot in the head, his body set on fire. At his funeral they had a closed casket.
The grave of George Armstrong and his wife, Emma, was on Robert’s right. The only reason he knew that was because he passed them getting to Robert. Their family did a good job with caretaking their grave. There was no one on his left. Some kind of drainage area. He didn’t keep track of who else was around. It’s said that people were buried with their feet facing west, head facing east. In Christianity, placing the body facing east will allow the dead to see the second coming of Jesus. That meant Robert’s head was at the top of his marker. John consciously avoided stepping on his headstone. Always did. Just didn’t seem right.
The day was crisp with temperatures in the low 50s. A sprinkling of clouds and a light breeze. True spring had arrived. He had on jeans, an untucked flannel shirt, work boots and a baseball cap he bought in Florida last year that said, “Smile,” inside a sun. Like most days, the cemetery was empty. A vast array of headstones lay in the field in a graph like system. There’s even organization in death. Some were well tended, others not. Who knows why. Perhaps there was no one left to do the detail work. Or, no one who cared. No judgment. Visiting a cemetery works for some and is incomprehensible to others.
Cemeteries can be disturbing. A representation of all that is gone, never to return. A body in decay. But still we keep the bodies. We either bury
or cremate. We just can’t seem to let them go. The city provided the basic service of cutting the grass and trimming around the vertical headstones, but if someone wanted a finer touch, it was up to them. Over the years John had maintained Robert’s grave in various ways. For the first seven years, he’d fertilized every spring. Robert’s was the greenest grass around. “Looking for Robert are you. Look for glowing green grass. He’s under that.” One year he fertilized so much and it rained so often the city couldn’t mow, so his grass grew a foot tall. When they could mow, they mowed around Robert’s grave. He brought his weed wacker and took care of it. Another year he tried to fertilize a heart into the grass. He used too much and killed it. He reseeded. They never said anything. Over the past few years, John focused on the immediate area around the grave and had stopped fertilizing. He no longer needed that as part of his healing.
John began edging the grass around the headstone and talking to Robert. “How are you sweetheart? We love you and miss you. I’m still
looking for work. Your brother’s doing fine at the bank. Your three month old nephew, Jeffrey, is doing great. You’d certainly be loving him up. Mom’s knees are bothering her again. Too many long hours at the store. Come visit sometime okay.” And then silence while he worked. He’d had many dreams involving Robert; 99% good, but he rarely saw Robert’s face. Maybe because of the fire, but who really knows why dreams are dreamt. His maintenance of the grave was akin to preserving the memory of their son and taking care of his home. He’s still Robert’s father and wanted to father him in any way he could. If pulling weeds and spreading mulch was the best he could do, he did that. As he took care of the earth where Robert was buried, he took care of him and took care of himself as well. Just his body was there. John took his life wherever he went. Years ago John understood that death did not take all of his son. Robert lived in many powerful and wonderful ways, but a top of the mountain life would never be John’s again. That was his sad reality. That hurt, but it was accepted.
He dug a shallow trench around the stone and laid in fresh mulch. Tan, cypress mulch. He liked the color and smell. Kind of like grave cologne. Eight years ago he took out the cement planter he’d placed there soon after the headstone went in. The planter was getting too heavy for him to lug back and forth from home. In its place he planted day lilies. They come back every year and need little help. They’re bright yellow and lively. A happy flower. They make it a good looking grave if there can be such a thing. They’d pushed up about six inches. Just the greenery so far. More mulch went on and arranged. He tamped down the ½ brick he kept there for tying a balloon on Robert’s birthday.The anniversary of his birth was never a horrible day for John. Sad, but not horribly sad. After all, that was the anniversary of the start of all the good stuff that is, not was, Robert. For many years he collected heart shaped rocks as a symbol of his love for Robert. At the top of his headstone, pushed into the earth was a good one; 5” at the wide part. A symbol of, “We love you.”
He looked at the headstone, focusing on “459.” Those numbers came to John years ago. If you look on the telephone, the numbers 4, 5, and 9, correspond to the letters, I, L and Y which correspond to the words, I Love You. Whenever John and Robert were with Robert’s friends and John got ready to leave, they’d turn to each other and say, “459 Dad.” And, “459 Son.” It was good. It made him happy thinking of those days.
He heard movement and looked up. Three adults and three kids were scattered about, eyes to the ground, searching for a headstone. It
reminded him of his other son’s beagle, Rex, and how he worked when he was outside. Nose to the ground, sniffing and searching; oblivious. The kids looked to be 9-10 years old. Kids are great, so “out there” and uninhibited. They came over, one walking through the day lilies. John said nothing. The adults kept a comfortable distance, probably thinking they’d be disrupting a sad time by engaging in conversation. He always liked to talk to fellow visitors. He liked to learn about their loved one and talk about Robert.
One boy asked, “Who’s this,” as he pointed at the headstone?
“That’s my son, who are you visiting?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, his voice slow and quiet. Older than his years.
One of the girls asked, “We’re looking for Molly Stewart. Do you know where she’s buried?”
“No I don’t. Her name isn’t familiar. How long ago did she die?”
An adult came close, but not too close. “She died about nine years ago when she was five.” Still nothing came to him.
“There’s a child’s cemetery near the front. She might be there.”
“Thanks.” She turned to leave.
The kids were sprinting from stone to stone, searching feverishly. They were “beagling” the area. One called out to no one, “There sure are a lot of dead people here.”
John laughed. One of the adults, a mom/grandma/aunt turned to him with a fearful expression that said, “I’m sorry. I’m sure she meant no offense.”
He thought, “Isn’t she cute and correct. Lots of dead people for sure.”
He went back to opening Robert’s grave. When he finished, he did his usual, which had become John’s tradition when leaving. He kissed his fingers and touched the ground in front of the headstone. “I love you Robert, come visit.” A sigh and he turned to leave. At the top of the small rise in the hill, stood the adults and kids, gathered around a grave. And then it dawned on him. He knew Molly. He remembered when she’d died. Molly was a little girl of five who died of a heart attack. It was in the papers. Some problem the parents knew nothing about. Very sudden, very sad. Her family’s blast to
the gut; the smash to their heart. Total devastation. Little Molly dead. Such a final word, dead.
Within days after Molly’s funeral, her gravesite filled with stuffed animals and flowers. A hanging basket on a shepherd’s hook. On his next visit to Robert’s a week later, he walked over. So much love and sorrow. So much sadness in a helpless way. What could anyone do but leave stuff that represented how much they cared about Molly and her grieving family. He knelt, kissed his fingers and touched the ground in front of her headstone.
In the months that followed he never saw anyone visit Molly. Perhaps they came when he wasn’t there, but he didn’t think so. The stuffed animals remained, covered in splattered mud. Flowers had blown a few feet away, now lifeless and crunchy. The hanging basket never watered; choked and dead. Grass had begun to grow across Molly’s headstone. Devastation visits in many ways. Coming to her grave, coming to visit the hole that swallowed sweet Molly must have been too much. He got that. He wished them well.
He thought about the day they buried Robert. John never saw Robert lowered into the ground. He didn’t remember it being presented as an option. Some find it too final, too “all over” when they see their child go into the earth, so they leave before it happens. Others do it as a form of a final
goodbye. Sometimes a shovel is passed around and anyone who wants to throws dirt on the casket. The dirt of, “See ya’ later. This is all I can do. I’m dying here.” Robert’s casket stayed on the device that took it out of the hearse. Metal with rollers, it perched above the hole like a fishing lure ready
to drop in a lake. On his next visit a few days later, there was just dirt. The hole was full. Full of Robert and full of ugly.
John shook himself free of that time. A memory that visits, but never stays for long. John doesn’t run from his sadness. He embraces it for what it is, his love for Robert. The joy is greater these days because John’s done his work and is now thankful for his healing. He’s a grateful father, but it doesn’t get any easier visiting the cemetery. It’s become tolerable.It’s an accepted destination. It’s no longer horrible. After all, it’s Robert.