Graveyards are Where We Make Them

After Daddy died we would visit his grave often. As often as we could. It was nearly 100 miles away.

We would go to the graveyard, tucked away in the trees just outside of a small town, and walk to the grave site and stare down, as if expecting something to happen. Perhaps wishing it was just a bad dream from which we could awaken. Like nightmares, when they are so out of control your brain forces you to wake up.

I often wake up screaming. Scares Spouse nearly to a heart attack.

Daddy used to have dreams like that, too.

I remember a long time ago at Spouse's brother's house. Spouse was talking about my dreams and how I would wake up screaming at least once a month, and sometimes more often. Then Spouse made the comment, "I wish I knew what you were dreaming." To which I replied, "No you don't."

When Lynahr died we did the same thing. Visited every spring. Lynahr was buried beside Daddy. Mother is terrified being buried and so she arranged to have herself cremated instead of buried beside Daddy. (Personally, the idea of being burning - even dead - is terrifying to me.)

Daddy died in '74. Lynarh died on 911.

By the mid-80s I didn't visit Daddy's grave so much. Now we don't visit Lynahr's much either.

I guess it comes down to being used to the idea that someone/something is dead.

For years I would take monthly drives back to the place where I grew up. Then it kind of just - stopped happening. The last time was last year, or the year before, when I brought Son there and took pictures.

It's not the same. It isn't home anymore. Not my home.

Acceptance of unpleasant things comes hard and slow. For some it is very hard and very slow. For others it is like waiting for the next glacial age. But for all of it, it is happening. We may think we have frozen in time, but life does go on. And sometimes I hate life for that very reason. Why does it go on? What right did life have to continue when Daddy died? When Cile died? When Grandma died? When Stephen died? When Lynahr died? But it does. And it asks no questions and seeks no approval for doing so. It just - goes on.

And so when a friendship dies what do we do? Often - but probably not always - we visit the places where that friendship meant the most. And we continue to go there until such time that we accept it has truly died - and life is moving on.

I don't want life to move on anymore. I want it to go backward.

The problem is, if life returns to those happier times in my past, it means I will not have the happier times which took place later. Spouse. Son. My friends here online. And so returning to the past will bring the same result: loss.

Life seems to be one constant lesson about gaining people and things - and then losing them. Not all at once. But eventually.

Life.

I don't always like it.