"I am the soft stars that shine at night"

Twice a day, every week day for the last 6 years, I have driven past the entrance to the cemetery where my grandmothers are buried.  I rarely go in, because, frankly, I get no comfort whatsoever from visiting graves.  The person isn't there.  It's just like standing by a rock with the person's name on it.  I know people who find great comfort in having a place to visit.  I just personally don't get it.  It's not only that I don't feel comfort, I also don't feel sad.  In fact, I don't feel anything at all.  It's like I enter a complete emotional vacuum and become devoid of any emotional connection.  

This morning, I was quite surprised when I found myself make the turn into the cemetery instead of driving past.  It was as if someone else had taken the wheel and turned my car.  Before I knew it, there I was, driving to her graveside.  Being that I was already there, I decided to get out of the car.  There have been plenty of times in the past when I just did a "drive by" visit.  "Hey, Gram.  How ya doing?  Just wanted to say hello!"  Seriously.  How bad is that?!  I have been feeling her pull on me lately, so I thought perhaps today would be different.  Perhaps today I would go to her grave and be overwhelmed by a sense of serenity, feel the warmth of her love wrap around me and reassure me that indeed everything would be OK.  Maybe today would be the day that I would say, "Ah.   Now I understand why people visit gravesides."  

Nope.  Not today.  I stood there, in the cool morning air, my feet freezing and wet with bits of freshly cut grass sticking to my shoes and felt, once again, absolutely nothing at all.  I bent down and wiped the grass from her name plate. 

Still nothing.  I felt vacant.  Empty.  A pointless venture into the depths of Calvary Cemetery.  And as always happens in that emotional void, my mind began to wander to some pretty morbid thoughts.  The progression was something like this:

 After 23 years, I imagine that there is nothing left of her in the casket except bones.

 Do bones decay too?  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust...surely they do, but I bet it takes a good deal longer for the bones.  I wonder how long it takes bones to decay.  I wonder what the atmosphere of the coffin does to the decay process.

 Then I notice the weather beaten silk flowers on her grave.  At least there isn't a bird in the flowers.  She hated birds (Me too!)  Once my grandfather's wife put a Christmas wreath on her grave with birds in it.  Stupid ugly birds.

 So I wonder who put these flowers here, and I know that it had to be either my grandfather or his current wife.  OK, they've been married for 22 years now.  I guess I can stop calling her "his current wife."  I think the marriage is going to last.

 This is when I feel a pang of sadness - thinking of my grandfather's current wife.  She's been nothing but nice to us for as long as she's been a part of the family, but I was never able to get past the fact that he married another woman.  It's always a little strange, a bit of unspoken tension, the wrong woman at his side.

 But back to the grave...at least someone put flowers on her grave, right?  I certainly didn't. I'm terribly negligent in that respect.  I don't think my mom visits the grave often either, but I don't know for sure.  We don't talk about it.

  I don't want to be buried.  It's a colossal waste of space, money and energy.  Cremate me, please, or better yet, wrap my body in cheesecloth and bury me in a green cemetery where I can actually be reabsorbed into the ground and help a poor farmer grow some awesome tomatoes some day!  Hey, if I'm useless in life, maybe I can at least  be put to good use in death.

  I'm going to be late for work, so I walk back through the cold and wet grass to my car and proceed with my drive to work.  It's in the car that the sadness hits.  I think again about those flowers, and of my grandfather, of how much I know he loved her, of how I have seen him get choked up talking about her in recent years.  I wonder what they were like as a young couple.  What were they like as young parents? Was she head over heels in love with him at one point?  Did she watch him opening presents with the kids on Christmas morning and feel an overwhelming sense of contentment - you know, the kind that only lasts about 2 minutes before the kids start beating each other up and reality hits you in the face?  Did she have that?  I bet she did.  It would be so nice to hear her version of her life story.

Then I think the rest of the day about my gram.  My sweet gram.  The only person who loved me 100% for me, faults and all.  Crazy woman.  Did all kinds of goofy things after she had her stroke when I was 8.  Was she crazy like that before the stroke too?  I have heard how fun she was, how she made everyone feel comfortable, gathered everyone near, how she always spoke her mind.  Do I have any of her personality?  Gram, my first true love.  How I miss her.

I don't know that I believe in an afterlife.  I pray.  I ask for guidance.  I want to believe, but my faith frequently falls short.  I don't find comfort in knowing that she is still with me in spirit, or that she is waiting for me in Heaven, because I'm just not so sure.  I find what comfort I can in the memories I have.  I see her still in the ocean waves every summer.  I hear her when I talk to my Aunt Carmen.   I channel her when I back into a parking space or eat peanut butter ice cream.  I see her in the stars on a crisp autumn night, and I find great joy in remembering the times we spent together.   I catch glimpses of what used to be in what is now.  As I thought about her today, I thought of this poem:

Do not stand at my grave and weep 

I am not there. 
I do not sleep. 
I am a thousand winds that blow. 
I am the diamond glints on snow. 
I am the sunlight on ripened grain. 
I am the gentle autumn rain. 
When you awaken in the morning's hush 
I am the swift uplifting rush 
Of quiet birds in circled flight. 
I am the soft stars that shine at night. 
Do not stand at my grave and cry; 
I am not there. 
I did not die. 


In spirit or not, I suppose she is still here with me.  As they say, she's in my heart.  Excluding a diagnosis of Alzheimer's, her memories will live on as long as I do. 


And how fitting was it that when Greg and I took the boys to the Meadows for ice cream tonight the flavor of the day was peanut butter.  Yep.  She's here, hand on my shoulder, asking if she can "just trim up the edges of my cone for me so it doesn't dribble."  Hey Gram, at 35, I'm on to you.  Get your own cone.