goodbye

 --  Christmas Eve  2010  --

I had only talked to you a few times over the years, but I sobbed when I inadvertently found out you were gone.  Sobbed until my eyes and face were swollen, and I was exhausted.  Tears for each of us and for many reasons.  I wondered...no, I hoped you did not die alone.  A thousand miles kept me from attending your service, but my heart was there.

The holidays have brought me home, and I decided this afternoon, Christmas Eve, that I needed to see you.  I searched for you in the falling snow for over an hour.  I called out to you for guidance, as I did so many years before.  A fairly new grave should not have been so hard to find.  Then there you were.  Alone.  Not a shred of evidence that anyone but you had been there.  No flowers.  No footprints.  Not even a mound of fresh earth.  Nothing, but a small marker that I nearly missed poked into the smooth barren ground.  I sobbed once more.  You deserved better.  My footprints will be gone before anyone notices someone cared enough to stand there and talk to you.  I left you a flag because you were a veteran, and a rose because you were loved. 

My world is strange sometimes.  I had looked at old photos of you and I just a couple of days before I found out.  I smiled even though my heart had ached so long ago.  You were such an influence.  The past 26 years of my life would have been completely different had I not known you as I did.  I hoped I would run into you over the holidays.  I did...I talked to you today, and again I sobbed.