I visited her grave yesterday, a brown rectangular mound, stoneless and new. She was in the damp, cooling wind and the sway of the old tree’s leaves, the gathering dusk and blanket of clouds moving north above my head. Just as we parked, alone in the small cemetery, the rain began, a few small drops, a few more. My younger son walked with me to her place, space, her body’s home, then he turned and ran back to the truck on tiptoes, letting out an exuberant yelp through the early-evening grey.
Alone now, glasses and phone aside, legs crossed, I looked all around, at the Children’s Garden across the road, the forest beyond it, the old tree my father loves, countless cloth flowers beside names of the departed, and the traveling sky, a thousand-and-more cotton balls laced together with a soft light barely glowing through.
I laid back, legs straight, arms stretched at either side, whole body in the wet grass. Cool rain waking my face, hands, neck, I was a receiver, a song in my heart beside the gentle rocking of my chest as grief and hope, a prayer and a listening fell into the grass with my tears, rose on the wind and sank deep into my soul.
I miss you hung on everything I could see and hear, I love you wove through the timeless expanse that held me suspended between the senses and the solely-spirit.
She gave me a clear message, one I will keep close just now.
Gathered too, with the falling rain and my mom (closer than a breath), were Aunt Alma, Dianna, Suzy, Grandma, Jessa, all offering assurance and love, promising assistance and that I have been carried by them all at times (this I know so well).
“Pray for them as they pray for you.” Indeed, this is true love.
