Here is where my mother lies ash and all beneath the ground of pummeled dirt. I squint as the sun is bearing down on my eyes thus creating this tunnel of blurred vision. The name is there etched in the white stone along with the hundreds of gravestones of former veteran and their loved ones; my lips are pursed and my cheeks are shuttering as my jaw shakes. Hundreds of thoughts are running through my head, so unorganized that I can't latch onto one. I start my usual mumbling.
"So yeah; I'm here mom." The tears start streaming and I look to the sky as if to damn God for doing this to me. Fumbling over my words I start spattering about my life and how it is; it doesn't help as my knees are growing weaker. I inch to the headstone and put my hand firmly upon it; it's smooth, cold, and shockingly bear. I glance at other headstones with dates of the dying and I grimace.
"You weren't supposed to die Mom. Not yet." I say this as a comic relief to myself, but it of course doesn't help. I step back and walk to my car; I sit and as I'm buckling myself in I look at her stone again. I waited for something to happen as if a voice would speak to me. Slamming doors interrupt my thought as I see people carrying flowers. They're older folks with hunched backs or gray hairs with tiny children in tow. This is awful.
One year is like a knife to my brain, and nothing really helps but the sobering words of a mother.
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