An Ivory Grave.

Widow visits her husband's grave in Arlington on a cold, rainy day.

My feet carry me forward, one step at a time, as I had coaxed myself many trips before. A strong breeze blows the hair from my face, and I lower my chin into my jacket as the harsh fabric rubs at my skin. The cold bites at my nose and the freezing drizzle taunts me, as if it knows I don’t want to be here and is trying so very hard to give me an excuse to leave. I wind my way carefully through the rows of identical graves, over the simple rolling hills, and brown, dying grass.  Perfectly aligned graves, all a shade of ivory, rest there, completely indistinguishable; each tells a story of pain and horror and valiance, but I am a stranger here. It hurts too much to see his death forced into so many others, as if he was just another brick in an immeasurably tall building; nothing special, but still necessary in the foundation. But I guess part of me is stronger than I believe myself to be, because I keep walking. My body is dead weight and my breathing catches through soft tears as I keep moving forward until I stop in front of a piece of stone that blends into the others too much for it to mean anything, but the letters etched into the unfeeling rock tell me I am standing in the correct place. The same correct place I had been to every day for as long as I can remember. My hands pry themselves away from the bouquet of flowers and I hear the soft sound of the air as they fall through the emptiness to your grave. Their vibrant colors seem out of place against the darkening petals of the other bouquets, I was the only one who ever brought them for you. They die quickly in the cold, the life gently draining from them, I see each one gently suffering as I come back, day after day. I see them deteriorate into carcasses and then blend into the ground. Then the gentle process of what will happen to them, and to you, makes itself known in my mind.  First they will die and wither, becoming part of the ground and people will walk unknowingly over it for years and years until it is eventually beneath it.  But your fate will be different, you will be become and fossil and be mined as coal by the humans of our own demented future.  You will soon be black smoke curving in an arced pattern toward the dying sun, you will coat the atmosphere and we will breathe you in as air.

My knees fail to support me, and I fall to the ground, the same ground under which you lay. Only five feet of dirt and a cherry colored coffin keep me from touching his soft face, holding his soft hand. I place my head back against what I knew would be there, and the cold stone supported my neck.  You never know when a nail in a ludacrisly expensive coffin will dictate your life, you never know when you will be attached to the one whose had is well rested on cushions six feet under.

The gray sky above me diluted the sunlight and dropped small, teasing beads on my body. And I was supposed to believe he was up there? Thinking he was there, in the dark and painful sky, hurt too much. I wanted to think, for one moment, that he was still here. Tears licked my eyes and flowed over to my cheeks. The tears gently mingled with the rain and washed my face. The frigid winds picked up once again, but I didn't feel them. I was numb, the kind of numb where things couldn’t hurt, because things couldn’t matter. I had felt that way since you left, so why did I keep coming here- to mourn your dead body? Your arms wouldn’t hold me any more, your thick hands wouldn’t trace my body so softly any more. You wouldn’t love me anymore. Sobs racked my body, and I cried and cried until crying was simply the only thing I could do. The rain picked up into sleet and my coat became soaked with the water. My hair was dripping onto my body, which was being pelted by the harsh icy liquid. I was shivering as I pulled my legs to my chest. I didn’t know what to do, because nothing could bring you back.  It left me thinking, what did martyring yourself get you?  A white grave in a row of others, tragedies in their own right?  What did death bring you?  Nothingness.

Reviews

[Hope]

:( This made me cry. He was all I could think of.