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04/19/2004: "The Suicide's Grave"

It was November when she was laid to rest, less than six months ago. She didn't see the downpours Chrismas Eve, the never felt the bitter chill of January, never walked through the snows of February; she never endured the wet and miserable Lenten march, or the resurgent spring of Palm Sunday. She never saw The Apprentice or The Swan, the scandalous half-time show at the Super Bowl, and she never learned who won last year's Oscars. I went over to her grave this morning: the grass has been growing like crazy, but not on it. But there has been activity. Some fresh flowers. Two crosses, woven from palm fronds. A circle made of small pieces of red shale, inscribed with a cross, and a heart of the same tesserae. Soon we will smooth and seed the ground, and bury her again, but I hope those childish
memorials remain there for a while longer.