I Shouldn’t Be Here Anyway

I left a page with no words written on it.

Left heavy with a dusty bit of stone from nearby.

There hadn’t been anything on the tablet my last visit. But that was nearly eight years ago. The death, her death, was fresh then, and I’m sure this was a hard place to be.

Now there’s a small wooden travel trailer, painted gayly in spring colors with the words “Hello Spring” written across it parked across its corner. The door had fallen off and lay next to a small white plastic angel which flew over the gravestone’s top edge.

I hadn’t planned on leaving anything. I hadn’t planned on feeling a small empty pit at the center of my chest. I hadn’t planned on gently touching the smooth surface of the stone just below and to the left of the lines of script. But I did.

The page I left, a small 3x5 lined sheet, slick and soft, torn from it’s other half, mostly cleanly, and folded down the middle as if to shield it’s words from passerby’s. On it, words so quiet, notions so slight and faded, that they didn’t need to be written down. Simple, serene and lovely.

Like this valley. Like her view. Beautiful as it was, though, even now a steady breeze blew across the land. Across this little cemetery. That’s the reason I left the stone sitting atop my slip of paper. I was worried that my trace would be gone; that my thoughts too would leave this peaceful place. Or maybe, I expected them to.

I crunched across the settled, unturned ground, crossing the low wire fence gracefully hooped along the top edge to return to my car, leaving unmolested the low closed gate further up the hill. I shouldn’t be here anyway.