by Miranda Hawkins
Autumn leaves crackled softly beneath my feet as I wandered amongst the aging tombstones, sketchbook in hand. The breeze was cool and tugged gently at my dark curls as I made my way deeper into the small graveyard. I'd been coming here two or three times a week for the past month or so, because my art teacher felt I needed to expand my portfolio.
"Abigail," she'd said. "You need more depth in your work, more meaning. Go out into the world and draw something truly inspiring!"
Sometimes I think my art teacher's really full of shit. Now, don't get me wrong, I know my style isn't for everyone. There are lots of people that despise fantasy, but that's what I have to draw. It's my lifelong passion and I can't imagine ever doing anything else.
So, with incredible difficulty I found a subject that interested me and would keep my teacher happy: death. Crypts and tombstones make wonderful studies, especially if you can find an older graveyard where the caretaker has let everything grow wild.
Madison Cemetery was exactly what I was looking for. Ancient and overgrown, some of the tilted tombstones dated back to the 1600's. Newer graves were separated by a crumbling stone wall that seemed held together only by the crooked climbing vines that scaled it.
As I walked further the sound of soft sobbing reached my ears and I didn't have to look to know that it was him. His presence was always erratic and sometimes he'd be there when I arrived, other times he'd appear after I'd begun sketching, but he always appeared eventually. At first his presence made me feel slightly uncomfortable, but eventually he became part of the cemetery itself and was no more strange to me than the chittering of the squirrels around me. After the first several days curiosity finally got the better of me; I wanted to know more without actually disturbing the young man, so, one time, even though I'd finished my drawing for the day, I waited for him to go home, thus leaving me free to examine the tombstone he frequented.
Standing two feet by three, its marble head supported a lamenting angel, wings spread out and arms opened wide to Heaven. It read:
Born January 5, 1992
Died April 28, 1997
Slowly I wove my way through the scattered stones in search of the grave whose image I hadn't finished the previous day. Finding it, I sat cross-legged on the damp ground and opened up my sketchbook to finish my drawing. It was coming along nicely, but because I'd been working on it for several days the shading was lopsided. Slowly, with long, adept strokes of my pencil, I tried to even out the image, but I soon realized that the error was going to be slightly more difficult to mend than I'd originally thought.
I must have sat there for several hours attempting to fix my mistake, because when I returned from within myself both of my feet had fallen asleep. Carefully I adjusted my legs and then paused, wondering what had broken my reverie. Something in the cemetery was definitely different, something I couldn't quite place. Suddenly I realized what was missing; the sobbing had stopped. Thinking, perhaps, that he'd merely softened his cries, I strained my ears to hear something other than the wind through the trees. At first I heard nothing, and in those few moments a vague feeling of incompleteness came over me; the cemetery just didn't seem the same without his gentle weeping in the background.
It was then that another sound, so slight I'd almost missed it, caught my ears. Someone was standing close behind me, breathing lightly. Laying my pencil down, I turned and found myself facing, unsurprisingly, the young man with whom I seemed to share Madison Cemetery. This being the first time I'd actually seen him without his face buried deeply in his hands, the artist in me took a moment to reflect upon his features.
He wasn't what society would have called attractive; the nose was too big and the chin was too long, but the sorrowful smile he gave me when I looked into those red-rimmed hazel eyes was enough to melt my heart and at that moment I wanted nothing more than to make him smile; not a small smile, but the ear-to-ear Cheshire cat kind. Brushing soft, brown bangs out of his face, he crouched down next to me, studying my picture.
"You come here a lot," he said, still looking at my drawing
It was a statement, not a question. For a moment I was without words, unsure of how to respond, so I nodded slowly. "It's an assignment for school."
He smiled that sad smile again and looked up from my sketch. "Your teacher told you to go out and draw tombstones?"
"Well, not really," I replied, feeling uncomfortable beneath the intensity of his gaze.
"You chose to come here?"
"Yeah, I think I'm trying to rebel against society's norms. You know, do something outlandish and unexpected."
"You think your trying to rebel?"
I shrugged. "Then again, maybe I just like graveyards. It can be soothing to be surrounded by all these memorials of the dead."
He was silent for a long time, and I was worried that I'd hurt him, but then he sighed slowly and asked, "What's the point if you can't think of a way to truly remember them?"
"I'm not sure I understand what you mean."
He gestured to the grave I'd been working on. One of the older ones, the stone was chipped and crumbling. Nature had done her best to erode the words, which were terribly faded, but still legible. They read:
Born February 18, 1854
Died August 21, 1932
A voice we loved is still
A place is vacant in our home
Which never can be filled.
Patting the leaf-covered ground beside me, I motioned for him to sit, which he did. Then I smiled softly and asked, "Would you like to talk about it?"
Hope flashed in those doleful eyes, lighting his face. "You don't really want to listen . . . do you?"
"Only if you really want to talk."
Sighing deeply, as if a great weight had been lifted from him, he said, "Thank you," and sat down. "Hannah, my sister, died in a car crash about a year ago; she was only five. Rain had been pouring down all day and she called me to ask if I could come pick her up from a friend's house. Normally, Mom would have done it, but she was out shopping, so I agreed.
I've always tried to be a safe driver, but the roads were slick and I couldn't stop in time. We were turning onto our street, when a car with no headlights came whipping around the corner. There was nowhere for me to go and we crashed almost head on. My sister was killed instantly, but I didn't find out she was dead until several days later when I woke up in the hospital."
He paused to collect his thoughts, grief bathing his face with an unhealthy pallor. "My Mom picked out the tombstone and agreed to let me write her epitaph, but nothing I've written is good enough. When I go home at night, her grave haunts my dreams, only instead of the mourning angel, Hannah has taken its place. Tears stream down her ghostly face and I know she cries because I can't find the words to tell others what she meant to my Mom and me." Breaking, the young man placed his head in his hands and allowed himself to weep once more.
"Please," I begged, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Please don't cry. Hannah wouldn't want to see you like this, would she?"
Raising his head, he looked at me with tired, bloodshot eyes. "Hannah's dead," he whispered. "She's never coming back."
I shook my head and whispered, "No. To live in the hearts of those we've left behind is to never die."
He was silent for a moment as understanding lit his eyes. "Do you really believe that?"
"I do."
He smiled then, and it was different this time; I saw hope there. "Thank you for . . . well, for everything."
"Your welcome," I replied as he stood and walked slowly away.
Born January 5, 1992
Died April 28, 1997
Of Those We Left Behind
Is to Never Die.
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