I had never visited before.
On the drive over I imagined her name
carved in Helvetica on the stone.
Birth date- death date.
Would her picture be on there?
Would the names of her grandchildren
cover the back?
My eyes strained to keep the well from spilling over.
I found her in the Catholic section.
The rest of her family buried elsewhere.
A small gray stone with nothing,
except her last name on the back.
And a simple explanation
of her existence on the front.
There were no angel statues.
Only one sun faded bouquet of plastic pink flowers.
Nothing else.
Nothing to show that she was loved
and that her life mattered.
Nothing to show how much her being here
had changed everything for me.
July 19, 1948-Sept 4, 2008
That's all.
Her entire life amounted to a two foot
un-mowed concrete block.
I felt her body rotting beneath me.
I sat cross legged, staring at the only evidence
that she was ever real at all.
This is what it had all come down to.
I had never visited before.