Our Cemetery

Cemeteries offer a place of
solace
quiet reflection
peace
quiet
remembrance.
She doesn't talk about her connection
to the cemetery
very much.
Most people find it off-putting.
Historically speaking, she has regularly visited one cemetery
since she was 16 years old.
When the storms become too much for her to handle,
she can sit upon her grandmother's grave
talk to her,
remember her,
tell her all the things she's missing.
It brings her a kind of reprieve that she has never been able to
talk to another person about,
let alone share.
Share?
Share.

He wants to go with her.

At first, she thought he was joking.
But he wasn't joking.
He wanted to go with her because he wanted to…
what?
Know her?
Satiate his own cemetery love?
Have the kind of intimacy with her being surrounded by dead people brings?

They went together to the cemetery.
Her cemetery.
She wasn't sure what she would feel,
this was completely untraveled ground for her.

As she watched him,
incredibly focused,
hands in his pockets,
totally at ease,
any fear she had, melted away.
She found herself following his lead.
Looking for the veterans buried there,
trying to find the oldest headstone,
being equally bothered by the headstones with no death year on them.
It was quietly profound
the way she felt
being there with him.
Like the feeling when you fit the last piece into the puzzle you have been working on forever.
Like the feeling when you finish your conditioner and shampoo at the same time.
Like the feeling after you finish an amazing book and need a minute to process it before moving on.
Like the feeling when life is just so subtly perfect for one small moment in time.

And today, on what was supposed to be one of the worst days of her life,
she was having the best day she has ever had.

And she knew that she would spend the rest of her life
hoping for this kind of perfect.