copyright 2005 by Blake Lamar
When he finally made it to the cemetery entrance, he didn’t want to go in, but he knew he must. There was something he had to do, but he didn’t understand what.
The gates were still open. Jim, the cemetery’s caretaker, didn’t shut and lock the gates until six o’clock or later, but any person on foot could just slip through the bars if they wanted to. The cemetery was larger than he thought it would be before the funeral. He didn’t remember much about Grandma’s funeral, except that it was cold and it had rained. It just seemed amazing to him a few days ago how such small town could have such a large cemetery. But the dead didn’t go anywhere. A lot of kids grew up and went off to college and never came back, but some people got stuck in this town until it swallowed them up. He imagined there were as many graves as people in town. The exponential growth factor didn’t hold in small towns like it did in the city.
Nobody else was in the cemetery except for Jim, who was weed-eating around the headstones on the far side. During the spring and summer and on into the fall, Jim could be seen out here most days trying his hardest to keep the grass cut down enough so that people wouldn’t complain. There was an underground sprinkler system that came on automatically at night to keep the grass looking nice and green all summer long. It had been so hot and dry the last month that the cemetery would have become a giant dead brown patch without it. Benjamin didn’t see how it made much sense to keep a place of the dead looking so fresh and alive. The cemetery only ever looked right in the winter. Right now the grass was so tall where he was that he could hear it whisper as it swayed in the wind.
When he saw the mound of dirt still looking freshly turned at his grandpa’s grave towards the back of the cemetery, fresh tears began to spill down his cheeks. He wanted to turn and run away. Run all the way back to the house and shut himself back in his room. But he knew that he needed to be here. He needed to face this one last time by himself so that maybe he could let it go. Not so that he could forget. That could never happen, but so that he could let those emotions drain out of him so he could feel hungry again.
He noticed that the headstone had been removed from his grandma’s grave. They were supposed to be bringing a joint headstone in sometime that had both their names and dates on them. He didn’t know what they were going to do with the old headstone. Perhaps grind the engravings off the front and sell it to someone else. He would hate to think he had someone else’s headstone. But by that point, he probably wouldn’t know or care. Instead there were two metal plates in front of each grave detailing the basic information while they waited on the new headstone. They were surrounded by wilted, dying flowers from the funeral.
He placed his hand on the mound of dirt as he continued to sob. He knew Grandpa’s spirit had soared to heaven, but on the off chance that his spirit had decided to return to his body, Benjamin was prepared to dig him back up if he thought he could feel something pressing up against this mound of dirt.
He felt nothing.
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