Dearly Departed

“And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive. But better than both is the one who has never been born, who has never seen the evil that is done under the sun.”
— Ecclesiastes 4:2-3 NIV

Valerie never liked the swingset in the cemetery. From her bedroom window, she could hear it creaking on its rusty chains, especially when the summer breeze was really going. She never looked out her window after the sun went down. The thought of looking out there and seeing a long line of dead children waiting for their turn on the swing would have sent her screaming down the upstairs hallway into her mother’s and step-father’s room, and that wasn’t a side of her she wanted her step-father to see.
     The cemetery itself didn’t bother her, it was just the swing. Valerie couldn’t understand why anyone would put a swingset up in a cemetery anyway. Maybe the caretakers thought it would give the kids something to do while moms and dads paid their respects. Children grieved too; didn’t they know that? Besides, other people’s children didn’t need to be hanging around so close to where her own father lie resting. This was her special place. No one else needed to be here.
     The swing wasn’t moving now though as Valerie stood barefoot in the cemetery with Madelyn, her little sister. Valerie liked the way the wet grass felt between her toes, spongy and cold and just a little tickly. Plus she was quieter in her bare feet. Madelyn had insisted on wearing tennis shoes, the pair of purple Keds with the lights at the back every time she took a step.
     “It’s dark outside and they’re too bright,” Valerie had tried to tell her as they snuck out the kitchen door. “Someone’s going to see.”
     “If you try and take them off, I’ll scream. Daddy gave them to me for my birthday.”
     Valerie had stood with her hands on her hips and sighed, the look their mother gave them when someone—usually Valerie—was in trouble. In the end, Valerie had been forced to relent; Maddie’s tantrums had been known to send bats into disoriented frenzies. The flashing blue and green LED’s had marked Maddie’s progress up and over the cemetery fence. Once they had both landed on the other side, Valerie wiped her palms on her nightgown and glanced back at the house. The lights were still off and the front door was still closed—both good signs.
     A blanket of mist had fallen over the cemetery, obscuring the headstones and making the air sparkle like tiny silver beads under a pale quarter moon. Maddie must be cold. Valerie is holding her little sister’s hand and can feel her back and legs shivering through her fingers. Cold or scared. But there was nothing here to be scared of. Valerie wasn’t scared. It was just dad, same as he’s always been, just without the body.
     The mist is brightest around his shoulders and face, as if the moon were lighting him from behind instead of shining down on them from high above the swingset. “They told me I could give you a choice,” he tells them, and a warm breeze rises up, rustling the leaves in the treetops overhead.
     Valerie can’t see the branches. It’s still too dark outside and the morning mist is too thick. She knows what is coming. This isn’t the first time they’ve had this conversation, but she knows it will be the last.
     Maddie begins to cry, her shivering giving way to a round of trembling sobs. “I don’t want you to go away, Daddy.” Maddie lets go of Valerie’s hand and runs to her father. She wraps her arms around his waist once, twice, trying to hug him, trying to feel his warmth against her. But of course there’s nothing to hold, only the prickles of wet mist against her bare arms.
     Father looks equally as desperate. He’s trying to hug Maddie back, trying to pat her tiny head, but it’s no use. “You can go back to your mother and step-father,” he tells them. “They love you very much. Or you can come over here with me. But we can’t keep doing this. It has to stop.”
     “But why?” Valerie asks, and the question breaks something loose inside her. Tears well up at the corners of her eyes. “Why can’t we just keep coming here? Why can’t we just keep seeing you?” The tears finally break free and spill down in long tracks along the side of each cheek. She doesn’t wipe them away.
     Up in the unseen tree branches, a whippoorwill begins to call—a sad, pitiful racket. It’s too soon. The night hasn’t lasted nearly long enough.
     “Time is drawing short,” Father says. “You have to choose. This must be the last time. You cannot properly live if part of you is still clinging to death.”
     Maddie turns her back on her father and stands next to Valerie again. She reaches up and grabs Valerie’s hand. She is no longer trembling with cold, fear, or sorrow. The morning mist is growing thin, the etched writing on the headstones almost becoming legible now. Valerie can see the dark outline of the swingset standing just beyond her father’s grave. Gray somber sunlight breaks through the mesh fence line at the other end of the cemetery. Warm air whistles through the graveyard, leaving behind the scent of freshly cut grass and cold mossy stone.
     Valerie puts her arm around Maddie and squeezes. Maddie hugs her back, then rests her head against Valerie’s elbow. The warmth of her sister’s body feels good in the chill of the cemetery fog.
     “We’re going to stay here,” Valerie tells her father. Maddie wipes her nose, but offers no argument.
     Sunlight is strengthening in the east and, with it, pulling the light away from their father. The outline of his shoulders and face slowly dim. Valerie thinks her father will be saddened by their decision and is surprised to see him smiling.
     “I’m so proud of both of you,” he says. “Live your lives and find happiness.” It’s his turn to cry now. His shoulders shudder as he makes tiny choking noises. No tears come though. Valerie wonders how he’s able to speak without vocal chords, but somehow can’t cry without tear ducts, or hug without arms. It doesn’t seem very fair, but then neither does death, and sometimes neither does life.
     Before he fades completely away, he wraps his arms around both of them. They feel nothing, but Valerie tries to remember what his arms felt like when he was alive, thick and strong and warm around her shoulders. He places a kiss on the top of each of their heads with lips that cannot kiss, and breathes in the scent of their hair with a nose that cannot smell. “Come and find me when your journey is over,” he tells them. “I’ll be waiting.”
     Their circle breaks apart and they wave goodbye for the last time. Other birds have joined the whippoorwill now, calling to one another from across the cemetery. The purple darkness of night has given way to the first gray orange rays of morning sunshine.
     Valerie gives Maddie’s hand a squeeze. “We better get going if we don’t want mom and Brian to yell at us again.”
     Maddie lets go of Valerie’s hand and races to the fence, her stupid LED lights flicking on and off across the grass. Valerie beats her over the fence—she always does—but she waits on the other side anyway to make sure Maddie doesn’t fall or get stuck.
     Maddie kicks off the fence and jumps the last few feet to the ground. When she stands up, she tells Valerie, “You mean mom and dad, don’t you?”
     “Isn’t that what I said?” Valerie says, and they sneak up the steps to the kitchen door.

THE END