the graveyard

It had been a while.

Last time I visited my mom's grave was 1989. I remember thinking how stupid and plain her tombstone was - just flat, with her name engraved on a picture of a book.

("It's supposed to be a bible dipshit" is what the stepsister said when I was 10. "How would YOU know what a bible looks like?" I asked)

Regardless, it did not look like the kind of place my mama should be. It was just a flat shady rock - not a good spot for a painter, tennis player, snuggler, kind of person.

I hated that rock.

Still do - but at least it's in a better spot.

Uncle B. had moved her. He didn't want her to be alone, and for that I was grateful. He moved her to be next to grandma and granddad, and the two aunts, and the uncles, and the great grandparents . . . and the rest of my entire family tree that kicked off early. Nobody there but great-grandma was over 60.

I saw it right away - that flat rock, with that book on it, and I smiled for a second. We were all quiet, Uncle B, the professor and me. And then I whispered, "Such a stupid tombstone. I always hated that book."

Uncle B. says, "I think it's supposed to be a Bible" kindly leaving out the "dipshit" part. I laugh just a little bit.

"I'm sorry," he says. This has always been hard on him. He is the only one left - and he watched it all happen. First his sister, then his mom, his dad, his in-laws, his wife . . . they are all there. I can hear the sad in his voice, and I don't dare turn around because my tears will start tumbling, and I am not ready yet.

"I should have brought something to tidy them up. I usually do - I keep them neat." He is right - he does, they are trimmed and well cared for, just a tiny bit long on the edges.

And I cannot help it. I have not seen her, seen any of them for so so long. I sit on my knees, and brush the grass clippings from the warm stone. It is not like sweeping, it is like the way you brush the hair from a fevered child's forehead - slow, tender, hoping against hope that your touch holds the power to make things right.

The professor is quiet. Uncle B appologizes again, "I am so sorry it is messy." But it isn't really, and he doesn't understand. Even I didn't understand until that very minute. He bends down to help me, and I stop him.

"No," I say to him, tears spilling quietly into the dry grass. I am trying to keep my voice calm, but it is hard. I need him to let me do this - because it is only right now that I begin to understand why this hurts so much.

I am not mad about the grass. Not at all.

"No," I tell him, my fingers slow and deliberate over the T in her name. "It's OK. I want to do this. I never . . ." God I hate myself for being such a baby right now, " . . .I never got to DO anything for HER. This is as close as I will ever get."

And it is true.
I was only six - five when she got sick. I never took her to lunch, or gave her a massage. I never listened to her vent about work, or helped fix her hair. This is IT - this is fucking IT . . . sweeping the goddamn grass clippings from a 30 year-old gravestone.

Uncle B. is so sad. He goes to the car, and the professor kneels close to me. It is like he knows - like he knows everything. "You gave her a legacy. You gave her two grandchildren - you DO something for her every day when you love them like you do."

I want him to be right. But all I can think about is how I probably destroyed their lives by leaving their father, and throwing their little souls into an uproar. So I say, "But I have not even done that right."

He is quiet for a minute and then very serious when he says, "You brought them here - to her home, her brother, to hear her story."

He is partly right, but it is still not enough. And the professor knows he cannot win this one - not now at least.

There is not a single blade of grass left - not on mama, or grandma, or grandad. But I still need to do something - HAVE to do something, so I pick. I pick the grass, all around the edges - even if it does not look evenly trimmed, everybody will know that someone was here - somebody sat with these three and cared for them.

The professor takes out a pocket knife and helps. I let him work on Granddad - but not Grandma or my mom - nobody gets to do that but me.

I am not ready to leave - not at all, but it's a big graveyard, and my family has paid for half of it, so we visit everyone.

It is hard, visiting so many graves in one shot. Because it is not like that idyllic "remember the happy times - celebrate their lives" mumbo jumbo you can do when you visit one person's grave. It is like walking around a death museum, everywhere you look, somebody you love is in the ground. And it all happened so fast - 5 years. Five years of misery - of chemo, and tears and dying - not a lot of life to celebrate.

We get back in the car, and Uncle B. says, "All I can think of is you - you being so little, but so smart, knowing you knew everything that was happening - knowing we couldn't protect you from what was coming. And it makes me so sad."