Viewing the Monument

I drove.  My mom rode in the passenger seat, my dad and Jacob in the back.  It was probably a good thing that I had company for this errand because my insides were a mess.  The closer we got to the cemetery, the slower I drove.  Mom tried to engage me in conversation on the way, but I was mostly silent.  Around anyone who knows me, I am a total blather mouth.  If I'm silent, something is usually very, very wrong.

The car knew the way, winding around the turns with little help from me.  As we entered the cemetery, my heartbeat sped up with sick anticipation.  I wanted to see the monument and I never wanted to lay eyes on, all at the same time.  I wasn't ready to see it, but I had to be first, you understand.  It belonged to my girl, and she was mine.

In the distance, I glimpsed the shape of her stone, and my first thought was, "It's not very tall."  That was perspective fooling me.  As we closed the distance, it grew taller and taller before my eyes.  I parked the car, gave a heavy sigh, finally grunting as if I was about to pick up a heavy burden and carry it a very long distance.  I opened the car door and shut it.  My feet moved closer and I stood in front of my daughter's gravestone, staring, shaking, crying without realizing I was until the tears blurred my vision.

There's something about putting things in writing, isn't there?  It is formal; undeniable.  It's a public declaration, and from my perspective, being a lover of words, it is the final confirmation of truth.  Is it no wonder the first thing I did was show that beautiful, intricately carved stone my back?

I turned away and sought out my son.  Shaky hands reached for him, and he came to me, with no resistance, whatsoever, burying his head in my chest, and locking both arms around my waist.  I looked down into his face, and saw the sight of Cory's monument had hit him hard.  He was choked up, and miserable.  A stone as a replacement for a big sister, a best friend?  What kind of screwed up deal was that?   He blinked furiously, fighting to get on top of these emotions that had snuck up and sandbagged him without warning.

Mom stood beside me, as she has through this entire nightmare.  She rubbed my back, she held my hand, and she stood strong beside me, murmuring gently all the while about how beautiful the stone was, and pleased our sweet Cory Girl would be.  What flowers should we place?  What sort of pots?  Would bushes be better?  What did I think?

I couldn't answer her.  This was one of those experiences in which you disassociate yourself from all sensory input to avoid the pain.

We weren't there, in front of the monument, more than five minutes.  I bent down before we left, and touched her name with my fingers, rubbing the rough texture and feeling as if my heart and soul were on fire  In that moment, studying those letters that someone had painstakingly carved, I traveled back in time to the beginning, more than two years ago, just days after walking up on her lying on the side of the road.

In my mind, I could see a shocked and hollow eyed woman examining an announcement board at the funeral home, crazed eyes tracking left to right, and back, again and again, unable to believe it was her baby's name on that board.  And that her baby girl's name was on that board to direct people to the room in which her dead body was lying in a coffin.

  On my knees in the cemetery, I was caught up in total memory recall, watching that woman, clearly sick with guilt, begin to sway on her feet.  Those white letters on that black board doubled and trebled, until finally they lost all focus, and Nicole, mother of Cory for as long as she'd been a grown up, fell down.  People came to help her, and she could only beg, "Please, please make them take those letters down."

They did.  The lovely, compassionate folk at the funeral home moved quickly to do my bidding  They couldn't bring my girl back to life, but they could ease the sting of all that reality staring me smack in the face.

No one can take her name down now.  There is no reprieve, however temporary, from this unfathomable realization.  In so many ways, I am back to the beginning, all over again.  As I drove my parents home, I made it about four minutes before I interrupted my mom's casual conversation with huge, donkey braying lung-bursting sobs.

"I knew this was gonna happen."  my mom said quietly...to my dad?  To me?  She patted me.  She reached for the hand in my lap that had balled into a fist.  Misery and heartbreak; anger and rage- they seem so intertwined in my world these days.