From July 26, 2020
Anne and I went to the cemetary to put flowers on Eric’s grave, to clean up Elliot’s grave and to put flowers on it too. It was a warm, humid, and still July afternoon. I walked around looking for sticks to make a cross as Anne trimmed the grass. Three fawns came by at the edge of the woods. I called Anne over to where I was. They stared at us and ran off. I gave Anne the sticks for the cross.
Sticks for a cross
The last stick cross we made had lasted six months, but had finally succombed to the mowers. Anne wanted a stick of a particular diameter and length for the cross bar, so I went back to the edge of the woods to look for one. While looking, the deer came back.
They were missing their mother. I was missing my son. We approached each other until we were about 10 paces apart. I told them, that I missed Elliot. They silently acknowledged my pain. All for of us stood still.
The Eastern Tailed-blue
When I went back to Anne, an Eastern Tailed-blue butterfly had been keeping her company. It kept landing on her foot. The outside of the wings were white, and the inside was violet. While we worked, I started telling Anne about my visit to the grave on January 8. I had yelled at Elliot that cold morning and then burst into tears. Between my outbursts as I caught my breath the wind chimes from up the hill rang. I told Anne that it was as if Elliot had spoken to me. “Dad I am sorry; I didn’t know what I was doing to you.”
As I was telling the story, the chimes we put up to remember Elliot rang just for a moment and then the butterfly landed on my shoe. I cried. We both cried. Just before we left, the Eastern Tailed-blue landed on the marker of the grave, then it flew back to my shoe. I put my finger on my shoe and the butterfly crawled on.
I like to think that Elliot was saying, “Dad, I remember that day too.”
