The Cemetery
Driving home through the countryside as the sun set, I noticed a cemetery along the roadside. A few neat little acres where so many had said goodbye to their loved ones.
In the waning light the headstones glowed crimson, as if the blood of all of those lost souls was splashed across a canvas. It was empty of the living, as graveyards are wont to be, save for one mourner.
One site saw was lush with flowers—not the kind left after a funeral, where the family asked the flowers to remain. These bouquets, likely plastic, had been placed over time and accumulated like the small gifts of life are known to do. The site was not all that unusual save for one detail: a bench had been placed at the grave, and upon it sat a man.
I could not tell his age or disposition in the growing darkness as we went by, but in an instant I understood and felt his loss deep in my being.
I saw not just a man at a gravesite, but an unmoored and desperate creature so deeply in love with a soulmate that her passing left him without direction or purpose. A ship whose sails and compass were stripped in a storm and now he was adrift in a sea where he no longer had direction, destination or propulsion.
I wondered: this lone figure was here tonight as he has been every night for… weeks? Months? Please, Jah, do not let this traveler be stranded now for years after the passing of this one cleaved from his own essence.
He did not share this moment with me, but I intruded and his loss became mine as I reflected on the mighty treasure I possessed and how delicate and precious it was. It occurred to me how we are like the green grass that seems so indelible when we are young but becomes so fleeting as the years and experiences stack up. The elephant of time tramples us until we are dust.
Our love is so powerful that it can transcend space and even time thanks to memory. But that power has its limits. How he and I long not only for the fondness of recollection but for the power and energy and thrill of existence with the ones we love.
As I rolled on, I heard the tearful whisper to her, “I wish I had said I love you more often. Held you more tightly, and just a little longer when I could. I miss the smell of you and the tenderness of your voice and the happy lilt of your laughter. How I pray God lets us be together again one day.”
I will carry the memory of the man with me, and perhaps my prayer will ease his loss in some small way, helping him in time to visit his little bench less often, until he is able to move forward again as the winds of life fill new sails and a recovered compass that directs him back to her arms forever.
And so, I reached and grasp the hand of the one I love and gently squeezed, knowing that one day I too might regret not having taken every opportunity. Tonight I have all of her, a gift I should not squander.
The darkness descended as she and I sang and laughed and celebrated all the moments we had behind and before us both.