Headstone continued … The Walk
Headstone
In a graveyard nearing dusk the groundskeeper came upon Death, leaning heavily on his knot gnarl anguish handled scythe as he knelt at an almost hidden, fallen stone, shunned, just outside the cemetery, alone, at the edge of a large forest. He wept quietly.
“Are you alright old man?”
Death was startled
“What?!” as he tried to stand
“No need. Pay your respects”
“Why don’t you shudder cold at the sight of me, cringe, run to escape who I am, maybe to you?”
“I know death. I have been here as long as you have searched … for your mother right? How did you know?”
“I had this inscribed in her stone I pray to God that she may lie forever with unopened eye hoping she would never see my shame and what I had become and wrought”
The groundskeeper said “Let’s walk my friend” …
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Headstone … The Walk
The groundskeeper walked his common with death in tow
“I knew her”
“I knew him, he was an ass, he was having an affair and was found out with a jealous bullet”
“She was the find in a weird way, but still buried together”
“He was a sad case of life cut short … on a Tuesday I think”
“That one was an unfortunate result of small minds”
“This was a way back where they wore masks … “
Stop!
What?
We’re just walking here, so stop.
But?
You know all of them, of course, we know that. Jobs are jobs and you have yours but I have mine … look to the distance, the Lily fields. These are my keep, some come to cry, to anguish and blubber, some come to just sit and wonder of talk to other places as if their words can be heard, some come to be seen for talk of why they were late today on someone’s birthday
That is Angie, talking to her dad
Those are flowers left by Peter who feels better now even though he was an awful son and knows he hastened his dad’s death
That is Bart, off to the left, who comes here only because he feels if he doesn’t he will lose whatever semblance of sanity he has left
That’s Michelle, after years away, who feels that wiping off the dust and dirt of time will somehow make everything better
Then there is Thomas, who I truly feel for, his loss that just destroyed him as that headstone is the last thing he has left in whatever it was that tried him in his world. Know that your job has consequences.
But what are we to do?
Nothing, we can do nothing, but we can have a little respect. I take comfort in some genuine words spoke at knelt stone, when there are some, when loss is so profound that it brings a tear to even this old groundskeeper’s eye
This is what you do?
It is, but I don’t fault you for doing what YOU do. Now stand …
But I don’t even remember having knelt
… use that scythe for balance and stand up from your creaky knees and let’s go over to that corner and to Maribel
Why Maribel … is she?
No, leave her be, she has time, still has a daughter to come, but she sings, she even extols your virtues
Me? My virtues?
She sings of what is done and understands, as do I, though in a lesser chord, I am no singer, and in such a glorious voice
Her loss?
Doesn’t matter, she just comes here, twice a week, sometimes more, and just sings along with the trees and the breeze and the sun and short lived birds through the stones underneath her feet that look out over the hills that this place, all of these places, are as they always are intended to be
Oh my, that is heaven
I know
You said she still has a daughter to come?
STOP!! My expanse can still include you, death can die. There will be another. It just won’t be you.
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