Is it true? Are you gone?

Dear Dad,

I’m not sure what happened in your last letter. I think you just got on the boat. Is that true? Are you gone?

What happens now? How will I know?

It figures that yesterday was Memorial Day. Mom picked a bunch of flowers from the yard – big, red rhododendron blooms and tiny little lime green flowers and I think lilies and some other stuff. We went to Washington Memorial and visited Meredith’s grave and your grave. We scrubbed your tombstone with copper cleaner. I think we’ve probably been scrubbing it a little too much over the years, because it’s looking kind of worn through around the letters. Then Mom put her flowers in the little metal can that’s sunk in the grass and we dumped some water in there. It’s kind of cool, because we decorate your grave, even though there’s no one to see it. It’s kind of like Mom thinks maybe you’re looking down or God is. Maybe it’s just for us.

It was weird being there with Rhonda and my brothers, who were working away with the copper cleaner and making jokes and stuff, while I was mainly thinking about our letters. Visiting your tombstone felt different to me this year, because now it’s there for someone I know. I mean, before we started writing to each other, Memorial Day was kind of about the idea of ancestors, not about real people. Now you’ve become real, just in time to leave.

Our timing is off again, because you’ll probably never read this.

Your son,

Trevor

Your burden bends you down. Let it be mine to bear.

Dear Trevor,

If I could take your fear from you and carry it for you, I would. If I could take your burdens from you, I would carry them gladly. All the weight that bends you down, let it be mine to bear. Your burden bends you down. Let it be mine to bear.

If I could, I would declare today a holiday for you. A holiday from all your fear and all your worries.

What if you were to ask that pastor—Pastor Drew—if he knows anything about how people in heaven can help people on earth? The Catholics pray to dead saints. I know I was no saint, but it can’t be all that different. I’ve known people that others called saints, but they generally only look that way from a distance. Once you get to know someone—anyone—up close, we’re all jerks.

Who is it that prays to their ancestors? The Chinese? Do you have any Chinese friends?

Maybe you should just ask that teacher of yours, Mrs. Henry. She seems wiser than most.

When my own mom – your Grandma Griffiths – found out she was dying, she was more worried about being forgotten than she was about death itself. Or maybe that’s what death meant to her. I suppose being forgotten is the great fear of all mothers. Or all parents.

She made your Uncle Floyd and me promise to visit her grave. Even at the time, I remember thinking that I might as well promise to do whatever she wanted, because once she died, she’d never notice if we visited or not. I’m not saying I intentionally lied to her. My motivation was to comfort her, not to lie to her.

We stopped by her grave every Memorial Day without fail. Funny, it was always one of my favorite days. Uncle Gwyd and Aunt Hazel always came with us, and Floyd and his rowdy cabal. We’d make the rounds at the cemetery and then hit some restaurant on the way home and swap family stories we’d all heard before, but loved hearing and telling again. Gwyd’s stories were the best, because he kept in all the dirt, especially his own dirt, but everyone else’s as well. More than anything else, I loved hearing about him growing up in Butte with my dad. Has he told you any of those stories? Real crazy, frontier-town stuff.

With all the family we had around the Puget Sound, funerals always felt pretty common to me. And death seemed pretty natural until it came to my own. That one still feels unnatural.

Check with that teacher of yours to see if she thinks there’s any way someone who is dead can help someone where you are.

Dad