First published here
It is a child who notices me. Her father has died: train wreck. He was the train driver. Her large eyes fix on mine despite the distance. She doesn’t blink, doesn’t cry. She simply notices me and looks. Startled, I stare back at her, assessing her in that way we all do: small six year-old, velvet dress of dark purple, matching ribbon in her black hair. She is a pale child, but naturally so, not grief-stricken. Still, that doesn’t mean she is cold with no love for her father. Children that age don’t always understand exactly what it means when a parent dies. Some refuse to accept it for a prolonged period. Others cry silently because they understand that Something Bad has happened, if nothing else. Others still find unconventional ways of dealing with it. Like me.
I was nine. Both of them, two days apart. First went my mother, a graceful dancer who smelled of honeysuckle year-round. She fell off one of those tall library ladders. Landed on her neck. Instant death. Forty-eight hours later, my father. A volunteer fireman drowned while on duty. Accidents, accidents. Irony doesn’t help. Gone means gone.
It still feels unfair. I kept the dead flowers for too long and spoke few words for years. I’m often told that I’m solemn and quiet, but I don’t think of myself that way. There’s a very loud voice inside my head, and it keeps me company. Particularly at night.
The procession moves and the crowd swallows the girl. I kill the cigar on a knot in the tree, flick it to the ground and climb to a lower branch, swinging to a silent drop on the grass. Squinting at the sun and rolling up my sleeves, I ready myself for work. Still, I’m sure if I had been loud, no one would have looked at me.
No one notices a grave digger, after all. We come when grief and love has left for good.
