Rosecarved Tombstone
There’s a graveyard on the south side of that lonely road, a mile out of town. I’ve been waiting there for you. You’re bound to show up eventually, right?
But it’s been years, love. Decades. I’ve traversed these rows a thousand times, but cannot find your name. It’s tiring here, you know. I don’t know how much longer my weary soul can stand it. But I can’t go home. Not yet. Not until I’ve found you.A woman once found me here, standing alone among the tombstones.
“How long has it been?” she asked me quietly.
“Too long,” I murmured, “but still not enough. What I wouldn’t give to skip the years until I see her again…”
She offered me a sad smile and led me to a weathered tombstone a little ways down that lonely row. It was a sad and lovely thing with a rose carved into its edge.
She told me about her daughter who was buried there. “The years pass slowly and sadly without her here,” she confided, “But I am still here, and I must make the best of it.”
“Do you ever wonder if she’s… waiting up on you?” I asked the woman cautiously.
“I wouldn’t want her to,” she told me, “This world is too filled with hurt, and I wouldn’t wish it on her anymore. It’s better that she moves on to better things.”
“But what if she can’t imagine a brighter world without you?”
She smiled sadly. “It’s not as if we have a choice.” She sighed. “Her life was not lost so that I would stop living. ”
I felt the sad truth in her words, but they gave me hope. It was true, the woman and her daughter would be parted for a long time, and yet I watched for years as the woman took time out each week to visit that rosecarved tombstone, until she herself was but another name on a rock in that lonely row. That sort of devotion inspired me, gave me renewed spirit. Just as that woman spent so much time here for her daughter, I will be here for you as long as it takes.
I’ll wait for you, my love, and keep searching still, until I find your name carved on one of these lonely rocks- and when at last you’re done with this shadowed world, I will leave a rose on your tombstone and follow you home.
