The Visit


I had always known that it was bound to happen sooner or later.  

I mean, it's natural, and impossible to prevent, right?  I just wished that it didn't have to happen so soon…

I wandered that dismal place alone, my eyes moving from one stone to another, searching the landscape for one stone in particular.  Withered bouquets were strewn on the ground around old tombstones worn from years of weather and neglect.  The wind wafted lightly through the surrounding trees and fresh-cut grass.  I could hear the wind whistling gently around me, almost like a tiny voice hidden amongst the dead and gone.  

I used to hate graveyards.

I suppose that being surrounded by the dearly departed always gave me a foreboding feeling about my own life.  After all, does anyone really want to be reminded of their own mortality in such a horrible way?

I stopped in front of a particularly new looking tombstone.  A recent addition to this already melancholy place, of course.  I stared at it for the longest time, and took in all the details, the smooth, gray stone, the neatly chiseled letters and the elegant decorations that lined the edges.  

I always found it ironic that despite all the effort put into a single tombstone, it couldn't even begin to justify the life that it's represents.  

As much as I didn't want to, I thought about my father…before the accident.

Huh….

It's not like I actually hated my father.  In fact, I never really even saw him as an enemy.  I guess I just never really understood him.  But it's of no use, now.  Too late to make amends…

…still…

…it's really not a big deal to me.

The sound of grass crunching underfoot pulled me from my thoughts.  I looked over my shoulder to see a young boy and girl walking towards me from the far end of the graveyard.  I couldn't recognize them as first, but as they came closer, I eventually identified them as my younger brother and sister.  I guess they're here to visit the grave as well.

Personally, it's not all that surprising.  I was always better at finding stuff than either of them.  I guess this is no different.

"Look, here it is," my brother said as he and my sister came to a stop in front of the tombstone.  We stared down together in silence for what seemed like forever.  I wanted to say something, a joke, anything to lighten the mood, but I couldn't think of anything good to say. My sister was the first one to break the silence when she burst into tears.  

"Hey," I said quickly, "it'll be okay."

"Don't cry," my brother said to her, "he wouldn't want you to be crying, would he?"  

She shook her head slowly and wiped her tears.

As I watched my brother comforting my sister, I found myself wondering why they were so upset over this.  It's just how things are.  Time progresses, people die, life goes on.  I learned that little fact when I was about his age, and it hasn't changed yet.

You learn to live with these kinds of things.  I sure did.

"Hey, dad," my brother called out over his shoulder, "we found it.  It's over here."  My father walked up behind the two of them and stared down at the tombstone in silence, grasping a fresh funeral bouquet tightly in his arms.  

What's with the flowers?  There are better items you could buy for a tombstone…

"I'm so sorry," he said at last, placing the funeral bouquet in front of the tombstone.  "I…I should have been more careful driving that night…please forgive me."

As I watched him, I found myself wondering once again why he felt so upset.

"This will be the last time we come to visit him," my father said slowly, "You have to say goodbye to your brother."

"Dad," I said as I reached out towards him.  My hand passed through his body as if there were nothing there.  

Oh, right.

I almost forgot.

"Goodbye, big brother," my sister said as my father took her and my brother away from my tombstone.

I chuckled a little as my father gave the tombstone one uneasy look before turning to leave.

I'm not bothered.  Not in the slightest.   

I sat on my little tombstone and watched them leave the graveyard slowly.  Sure, it'll be lonely with them gone, but it's like I said:

Time progresses, people die, life goes on.

It's okay.  I'm patient.

I stared up into the clouds and thought about the stories they would tell me the next time we met.