It's so quiet out here. I see greens and yellows. I smell the season of color. I hear the peace in the wind. I stand still for a moment..... "Megan, wake up. We're here. This is where I grew up". I opened my eyes and looked out my window to see myself bordered by trees so old and wise. I can hear the rocks shuffleing around from the gravel road under us. I adjusted my eyes to see a blur of people ahead of us. Strangers who will eventually be introduced as family. We parked crooked under a tree. I stepped out the car and collided with the wind. It smelt sweet.
Conversations echoed through the breezes. I walked through a crowd of people I've never known. I studied their faces, looking for someone who looked like me.
"Noone looks like me here, noone had my eyes, my nose or my smile..noone looks like my father". I felt a hand touch my shoulder- it was a light touch, kind of fragile. I turn around to see a woman, with hair as white as snow with eyes as blue as a turquoise night. Her wrinkles represented wisdom and her smile looked like.....my fathers. She went on to tell me that she was the cousin of my grandfather. I saw a small resemblence of him in her facial expressions. Her name was Maude. "
Like the color?", I asked. She covered her ruby lips as she laughed, as if it was the polite thing to do. Maybe that was etiquette when she was growing up. She nudged my hand and replied " yes but, I'm much more colorful". I covered my not so ruby lips..and giggled.
We walked in the cemetary where known and unknown family lay. I mentioned how I only knew two people buried here. She took me to where some of her family was buried. She stood silent for a moment, like she was remembering something. I read the words on the headstone that she was so humbly glaring at- " Not here on earth but forever in our hearts, Mother of Maude and Sid Thompson". Sid, her brother, who lay next to his mother. I didn't know this woman but I felt like I wanted to. The breeze carried her scent over to me. She smelled like vintage.
I let my eyes graze across the cemetary watching people search for their loved ones. I'm in awe at the fact that these are family members that I have never met, coming to pay respects to family members I have never known of. I watch as people stand at headstones wiping away any debree or dirt that earth has brought upon it....wiping tears from their cheeks. It began to rain a little. Everyone hoverd under their sweaters and ran to the nearest shelter. I happened to be standing under a large aged tree. It had swirls of branches and big acorns falling from it. I was safe from the rain.
The cemetary became desolate after living souls escaped from the unforgiving element that fell from above. There I stood- the rain by my side, generations of family and a grandmother I never knew beneath me. Her headstone reading "Beloved Mother of Robert Thompson"... my father. " Your father was young when she died- you better get out of this rain now, it's gonna get bad". I turned to see my grandfather, huntched over under his jacket, the rain soaking him. "I wonder what she would have thought of me" I said as I was talking over the noisy raindrops, squinting my eyes trying to look through the strikes of water pouring down on us. My grandfather stared at me for a moment, then looked at the sky.. "she would have loved ya kid, now lets go". He turned and made his way back to shelter, stepping carefully over puddles of mud and water. I couldn't just abandon these restful souls. It was raining on them. Flowers from people who loved them were being blown away and there was nothing they could do about it. The tree that kept me dry had forsaken me. I was soaked.. but I stood there, paying my respect to people I never knew, but people that I loved. I love anyone who shares my blood.
I felt the heat of the sun on my skin. The rain had seized and it was peaceful again. I had a new perspective of the dead. I respected the stillness and the love that was once shared among every soul whose heart pittered pattered to the beat of life. "
What happens here when the sun sets?"I brushed my grandmothers headstone with my fingertips. I walked away feeling as still as them.
If I die young, bury me in satin,
lay me down on a bed of roses.
sink me in the river, at dawn
send me away with the words of a love song.
Surround my headstone with cupcakes.... and know I'm somewhere sweet.
