Of Roses, Stones and Bones

It's Monday and she thinks what can I do for that one hour?

That one hour where she is free before work starts again.

And she thinks maybe I'll go visit my grandparents.

Not the ones in New Hampshire,

The ones five minutes away

Rotting in a cemetery.

Because while they might not have physically been there for her.

She always felt closer to them than her other grandparents.

That's what kids do.

They have their Grandparents,

And then they have their Other grandparents.

Anyway, they were her Grandparents even in death.

So she thought I'll stop by with a rose and say hi.

When she got there, it felt different.

She realized this stone did not make up her Grandparents.

It was a piece of rock telling people they were here at one point.

That wasn't them.

It was their bones.

Not their souls she was talking to.

Yet she kissed the rose and laid it on the yellowing grass by the memorial,

Whispering of love and how she missed them.

But she never said the parting words.

The words that hurt to form into a sentence.

Sometimes, she noticed, it's better to talk to bones than the wind.

Sometimes it's the idea of trying to say goodbye that hurts the most.