Graves

(Another piece of "Reports from the Frontal Lobe"......finished except the editing and flow and that is coming along quickly.)

Graves. One waits for each of us. Not the one they put our body in. That one can be avoided. We can float our ashes on the wind. We might cast the vessel that was ours into the sea. We might let them have us in the labs. Parts of us might move about in others thanks to donating what we won’t be using anymore. Doesn’t really matter. We ain’t there anymore. We died, boys and girls. We can’t really be late for our own funeral. We ain’t even there. Our grave might be that one for someone else though…that grave that really gets them mad about death.

My mother’s grave was that one for me. Stood there, all grown up and decked out in the uniform I wore for twenty-eight years. Stood there to make her proud. To make her smile that smile that said, “This is my son. Look at how well I raised him”. The follow on thought “..and rest assured, it was a hell of a lot of work!”…lessened over the years. There I stood…and that smile was gone. The big brave officer and world traveler and all around happy man….wanted the smile and it was gone. The little boy cried.

Over a year later, I emerged from the grief. It took that long to handle it. Was walking wounded….went through life without living it that long. People who knew me knew it. People who didn’t know me knew it. Anyone that looked knew it. The only one I fooled was myself.

I stood at my Mother’s grave and hated death. Hated that she was gone. Hated that I had to pretend to be alright.

Heard about Elvis and how he threw himself on his mother’s casket. He clawed at it. He wanted her out of that box. He wanted to get in that box with her. He hated death at the moment. He hated life at that moment. He was clueless about how he could possible just keep on living anymore.

Some people wale. Others cry. Some claw at the casket. We handle death in our own way. That one grave waits for us. The one when we really hate death. The one when death steps into our lives and changes everything.

Death is part of life. Until that one grave arrives, we fool ourselves. After it arrives, we are changed. Changed for the better actually. That is when we know how much we can love. How much we can care. How much living matters. How much one person can mean to another. That grave arrives and we begin to live. To truly live. To appreciate what we are while we are still here to be it.

It’s only one grave that gets us like that. Our heart has to be really ready to understand life. Once we understand life, we understand death. We walk away from the grave more alive….or more dead. My mom gave me life. Her death showed me how precious life is. One grave. Death is pretty serious stuff. Life is about living fully…once we face death and decide we will live.