Beloveds

I took Mrs. Meyer’s Multi-Surface Cleaner and a lot of paper towels but that wasn’t enough. The green grime on my parents’ headstone was thick and sticky so I focused on getting the smooth parts of the marble clean and shiny again and gave up on cleaning up their names. By the time I finished the front of their headstone and the top, the paper towels were spent. I used them to clean the back and the base anyway. And then when I was done, I took my sodden wad of paper towels and my Mrs. Meyer’s and I started in on my grandparents’ headstone.

Use what you have. The story of my life. The story of theirs.

The grass of my parents’ graves has vivid green areas of moss. I’m not a horticulturist so I don’t know the name, but I see the earth is different where they are. The green in telling me so. What does that mean, I wonder, for what is happening in the earth below. Does it mean they are letting go of everything and giving themselves up to the green? Smoothing the moss with my hand felt almost like smoothing my mother’s cheek or the tablecloth at Thanksgiving dinner.

While I am cleaning, I tell them things that are happening. But I don’t talk. It seems to me that we’ve gone beyond talking if their selves are becoming moss under my hands. And I make fast work of the news because it seems much of it would be unpleasant to them. So I tell them in my mind that it is okay, we are all okay, although I wouldn’t stake my life on the truth of that. It doesn’t matter anyway.

I leave four rocks on their headstone, two for each. They are rocks from Lake Superior, a place where many people have died and the rocks pile up in storms like miles’ long cairns. It’s not a place they would know but it is precious to me. Each of the rocks was picked for its color and shape. What would go with my mother’s hair? Would my father think this rock manly enough?

And then, like a person in a movie saying goodbye, I kiss the top of my parents’ headstone like I am kissing the heads of toddlers. I love them and I am grateful. That’s the meaning of the kiss. And also, I am sorry. But I’ve said that many times before and it’s changed nothing. They’ve forgotten the offense. And now, I think, so have I.