This morning I got up and knew it was the day. I tried to slip out without being seen, but I had to ask to use the car. It was too far to walk. I said I was going to the store and would bring something back to eat for breakfast. I could hardly keep from crying as I spoke. I hid my face as I left quietly and quickly.
It is almost the 25th of October, the anniversary of her death. This visit has been planned for months, but not consciously. I think today was the right day. I just knew it as I awoke. It was time.
I went to the grocery store and among the few things bought a peach colored rose. I left the store with tears in my eyes.
Green Mountain Cemetery is nestled up against the mountains. It is a quiet and beautiful place, just above where Anne and Ray lived on Devon Place. I parked the car nearby and approached the outdoor bank of compartments. There is where Tara's ashes lay, facing the south and east. I cried and cried and talked to her and talked some more. I then lay the rose at the foot of the bank of compartments noting that I had tried to think of what she might want. She was married in a peach colored dress and peach was somehow the color of her wedding to Tony that day on top of Vail Mountain.
I went to see Ray's gravesite nearby. Walked right to it. I sort of knew my way without looking. I recall looking out the window of the house on Devon, seeing two gravediggers jumping and packing the dirt on top of Ray's grave. I never told anyone about this--at the time, I could not look and turned away from the window. And today I talked for a short while, noting I had only twenty years with him while he was alive. I miss him, and I told him so. I took away a pot with dead flowers in it.
And upon returning to Tara, I cleaned up some dead flowers around her place of rest, although I am sure she is not there. I talked some more. I said I would listen from now on if she wanted to talk with me. I have been so selfishly sad all these years and have closed my eyes and ears to life and the pain. When there was just one Kleenex left in my back pocket and a full pocket of wet ones in my jacket, I said, "See ya later, I hope soon."
I returned slowly through the old neighborhood and by the university and down into the downtown. I parked the car and slipped into the house while it was quiet, went to my room, closed the door, and my eyes; and I thought I should tell someone this secret.
I am telling you because . . . if you love someone. . . .
