Hi!
I know day of the death were last week, but I don´t know... I wrote something about it and I still want to share with everyone. It's kinda corny and my grammar is not really good, but I tried! So any comment and correction is welcomed!
It was that
time of the year again.
Sitting
next to her mother, listening to the endless praying of her aunts and
grandmother, the little girl is bored. It is no fun at all if the only thing
she has to do is to sit in front of a tomb of a person she never met and hear
the old stories from her relatives that she already knows, as they always tell
the same ones year by year.
It is a hot
day and the sun is barely tolerable at midday. The place where her great
grandmother was buried is surrounded by old trees that cannot offer enough
shadow for everyone. “Why can’t it be
colder?” she asks to herself with frustration, covering her eyes with both
hands, “It is supposed to be autumn. And there’re no clouds in the sky. Stupid
sun! ”
The pray
ends and then one of her aunts kneels down in front of the tomb, opens the can of soda she was carrying and
buries the tip in the soil, just in front of the cross in which the name of
great grandma is written. There is no white marble headstone; the tomb is just
an elevation in the ground. Simple as it is, the girl still thinks the tomb is
kind of pretty today with all the flowers, yellow and purple, covering it. She
still wonders how her mother could dislike such cute flowers. Maybe it’s
because they are ordinary. After all, mother loves beautiful and exotic things.
The offering is done and now all her family
starts to chat. The first topic is, of course, the can of soda standing in
front of the cross. According to his aunts, great grandma loved soda the most
and in order to get her enjoy again her favorite drink, they bring the can and
leave it in her tomb every year. It’s an old story and it always ends with one
of her aunts laughing and asking permission to take a sip of soda before
leaving the graveyard.
Since
everyone is starting to tell jokes and share old memories, the girl realizes
she has no longer the obligation of sitting quietly. All her relatives are
distracted and she takes the opportunity of walk away. The graveyard is big and
she always has the interest of explore it, but still, she doesn’t go too far
from where her mother is. After all, she doesn’t want to get lost.
It is
difficult to walk around, there are a lot of people and the tombs are too close
to each other. She doesn’t want to step over one, mostly because she doesn’t want
the people buried down there to get mad at her.
There is
now a beautiful tomb in front of her, all white and covered with flowers. It
belongs to a man. No… she corrects herself immediately, it is not a man but a
boy. The dates engraved in the marble tell her that if that boy was alive, he
would be her age. There is something else written above his name and birth and
death dates.
“You’ll always live in your hearts”
Though it’s
not the first time she comes to the graveyard and explores other tombs, she cannot
help feeling sad at reading the epitaph. Death is never fair. Her own parents
have said that so many times and she believes so. Despite her sudden sadness,
there something that makes her feel relieved. The boy’s tomb is beautifully
adorned, meaning her parents have come to visit him. Several years have passed since
his death, but his parents still remember him. She believes that that boy,
wherever he is now, would be happy to see his tomb covered in flowers.
“That’s
what this day is about, isn’t?” She thinks, remembering the explanation of the
teacher at school, “Today is not supposed to be a sad day”
Another
tomb catches her attention. It’s even bigger that the boy’s but looks old and
abandoned. There are no flowers on its vases and there is a big layer of dust
covering it. She has seen many tombs like that in the previous years, some of
them with their headstones broken. But this one is not broken and, after
getting closer to look at the dates, it is not that old, either.
Now, that
is really sad. Where are the relatives of this woman? Did they forget about
her?
The girl
looks around. The contrast between the tombs adorned and those that were
forgotten is great. An idea comes to her, and before she evaluates it, she goes
to the next tomb which has many flowers on its vases. She whisper apologies for
the person that tomb belongs to, and takes three yellow flowers from one vase. She
then places those three insignificant flowers over the tomb of the forgotten
woman.
The tomb
still looks miserable, but the girl feels somewhat satisfied.
Now
someone remembers you,” mutters, thinking the woman can hear her and is pleased
with her offering.
Now that
she has done it once, the girl believes is now her task to look around for more
flowers for the abandoned tombs. It’s kind of difficult because the tombs that
can donate some of their flowers are still being visited. And surely, people
wouldn’t like to see her stealing their flowers to give them to someone else.
Still, she manages to put two or three flowers on four more tombs.
She now has
taken flowers from the boy’s tomb, that one who would have been her age if he
was alive, and she puts over a tomb of a man who died fifty years ago. The
headstone is close to break but she still can read the epitaph.
“From his wife and sons who will never forget
him”
The voice
of her mother calling for her startles her. Her family is leaving the graveyard
now.
“What where
you doing over there?” her mother asks her as soon as the girl comes to her
side.
“Nothing,”
the girl answer, taking the hand of her mother as they start to walk to the exit,
trying not to step over the tombs.
Her mother
doesn’t seem really interested in her daughter affairs, so she no longer asks
questions.
Just once,
the girl looks back to the place great grandma is. While is true she never met
her, as well as the other people she offered flowers, she feels now glad to be
able to visit her, and the others, on this day.
