OREMUS

As I stepped from my car, I looked out across the rows and rows of stones that marked the final resting place of those who have passed. Like soldiers or silent sentinels evenly spaced they stood and represent stories about life and death

My visit was to my son, father, and father-in-law on this special day, Father’s Day. The cemetery was not filled with the living but why would it, even today? At least three times a year I make a visit to my son, his birthday, the anniversary of his death, and Father’s Day. I talk to him a little, say a prayer and move on. The sun beating down on my shoulders as I read his stone for the zillionth time still reads the same, with a phrase: “Let the children come unto me” and then his name and the years of his life.

Today I mentioned to him that I was waiting for good news from his older brother about his new nephew, one he will never meet. I told him that my hope for this unborn child was one with a prayer that sits silently on my lips, and then explodes on occasion as my day passes; that for his safe delivery and health for his life to come and that of his mother. I just wait like everyone else in the family.

Father’s Day is an empty day for me, when you lose a child, the day only reminds me of what I once had and now miss. I am grateful for my children, they are each a separate blessing, but that one child dominates the sense of loss, and the reminder of a dark day once.