The Dead and The Living

A Story by Summer Grace

This is a story I wrote for a writing contest, where it didn't place, but I didn't expect it to, it's the first story of this length that I've ever written.Criticism and thoughts are welcome!

She walked in the cemetery in the gray weather. It was autumn, and she’d been gone a long time. Who remembered her now? Time had gone by. Time had brought friends and relatives here while time had given them new descendents in the world out there. Did she walk in the world out there? Sometimes, when she was bored of the world behind the cemetery gates, she did, but not often. The dead, it seemed, were supposed to stay behind the cemetery gates. She had died young. She left a daughter, her only child. Her daughter had grown up and married and she had great grandchildren now.

Who was she? When she died in the 1920s, she did not know who she was. Who was she today? A ghost, some would say. Her name was on her tombstone, Irene Herrick. So was her photograph, worn by time. She was an eternal flapper, dead at 21. She had married at 19, and was dead of complications of childbirth by age 21. She left her daughter to tell the world who she was. But Irene’s daughter was nothing like her, and did not know who her mother had been, so the future never knew who Irene had been. Only the past, the people who had known in her lifetime, knew who she had been.

Part of her was still here in the cemetery where she had been buried, and part of her was gone to the next world. The part of her that still cared about this world remained in the cemetery. This was the part of her that walked the cemetery on this gray day, in October, when the leaves were falling, crimson. Nobody could see her. She was just a gust of wind, along the paths, where perhaps somebody turned and saw leaves blown along the path by the autumn wind, and thought it was just the autumn wind. But it wasn’t. It was Irene, the essence of her that remained to watch over the world.

She walked down the road, in the gray weather. She was by herself, on a gray autumn Saturday. Who was she? She was just a seemingly ordinary young woman of the early 21^st century, Lee Smith. The gray buildings of downtown in this small Midwestern city loomed drab through the mist. Lee walked on, thinking to herself, and watching the crimson leaves scatter on the pavement. Lee was usually a busy college student, but on a rare day off from work or school, she decided to take a walk by herself and window shop along the downtown area.

Lee stepped out onto the street. Lee also stepped in front of a car. But Lee didn’t die. It was very close though, observers would later tell her. Lee looked up, and it seemed safe to cross the street. The noise of traffic echoed in the distance. She saw the signal to walk. When she was walking, she looked up, and there was a car coming at her through the intersection where it was supposed to have been stopped at a red light. But it was coming, towards her. Lee was standing in the middle of the street by now. Just when it seemed about to hit her, it seemed she was pushed out of the way. But by what, the wind? It was a windy day, to be sure. Lee found herself on the other side of the street staring in bewilderment at everything.

The driver of the car that had run the red light had been talking on his cell phone, distracted by a intense conversation with his soon to be ex-wife. Another fight on the phone, another distraction he did not need. He allowed himself to be dragged into it though, and distracted by it, so the red light did not register in his world. He did not even notice until he saw a girl in the street walking, lost in thought, until she looked up and her eyes widened, and she saw the car. What happened next confused him, he did hit the brakes, he knew that, but it seemed like it might be too late to avoid hitting her.

But, she was not there. On the edge of the street, there was a girl, though. Was it the same girl as the one in the street, just seconds ago? It seemed so; she looked the same, only her eyes were even wider with fright. But how had she managed to walk across the street in that length of time? It was completely puzzling to him. It was completely puzzling to Lee, too. By the side of the downtown street, he parked, to ask the girl standing by street, if she was the same girl in the street just a minute ago, and if so, he’d like to apologize for being so distracted, and offer assistance, should she need any, though it seemed she could not have been physically harmed, she moved so fast.

Lee looked up as the driver of the car that had almost hit her approached. Observers across the street came towards her too, to ask if she needed help, saying it was close.They had classified the guy driving the car as, at best, a distracted jerk, and at worst, they supposed that he had been drinking or something. He knew he was labeled. He asked if she was alright, and she answered hesitantly yes. After that, he talked to nearby observers and explained why he had almost hit her and had run the red light. Lee wasn’t saying much, but not because she was mad at the driver who had almost hit her. It was because she did not know how she had been saved from being hit by that car. Wonder overcame her and she did not have answers to the questions filling her head.

The observers ended up calling the police, and in as few words as possible, Lee said she was okay, and did not need medical assistance, although she confirmed that she was the same girl who was crossing the street, and was almost hit. The police took Lee’s word for it, and left her alone and spent more time talking to the distracted driver. The rest of the incident, the aftermath of it with the driver, did not concern Lee especially when she knew police had established that he had not been drinking or under the influence of anything.It wasn’t until years later that she would find out the truth of the events of that day.

Lee lived past her early youth, forever pondering why she been allowed that gift and forever pondering what had happened that October day. It was like someone pushed her out of the way of the car. But who could have? It wasn’t a physical person that was for sure. What HAD she seen that day? She often asked herself that question. She had been 21 that day. She was 41 now and still asking herself what she had seen.

Lee had never pondered death before her experience. She had never considered how we are connected to those that came before us. But after that incident, she did. She thought about her family and became interested in family history, because that might be the answer as to why she had escaped from that car on that October day. It sounded absurd, but she had a theory she never told anyone. Actually, Lee never told anyone about the incident that day. She did not want to worry her parents and boyfriend, or her friends. Nothing had happened anyway, it was a lucky escape. The incident concerned her less as time went by, naturally.

It was 20 years past now and it was October again in the Midwestern city where she still lived. As in every October, the leaves came down, crimson, gold, and orange. It was a day much like the one 20 years before. Without telling anyone Lee left her house. But not for a walk, that still seemed like it might be tempting fate, on this day 20 years later. Instead, Lee went for a drive.

It was a misty day at the cemetery, where 20 years in the old section at least, registered little change. Irene’s haunting face in the photograph on her tombstone looked at the leaves that were falling. There were so many lost things in the cemetery, so many lost dreams and lives, lost like the leaves that fell on top of them, in the autumn, and blew away. In white stone, were the dates of Irene’s life (June 20, 1904- Oct 7, 1925) forever proclaiming to the dead and the living how fragile life can be, how fast we can become the long ago.

Was some essence of Irene still here, or had twenty more years been long enough for the last part of her, clinging to earth like autumn mist, to move on? It seemed perhaps she had moved on. The leaves lay still on the pavement. It seemed no one was walking in the cemetery. Lee drove through nearby streets, on her way to a park. She wasn’t thinking about the cemetery yet, though she was thinking about long ago.

In the park, Lee sat in her car, and felt for the first time, she was ready to answer her questions about what had happened to her 20 years ago. Lee had seen a woman that day, a woman had pushed her out of the way. But not just any woman, she was clearly not real, she had to be an angel or a ghost. But what ghost? She thought it must be someone from her family history. So she researched it, and thought she had figured out who it might be. But because Lee did not want to know for sure, she was not ready to see a photo of the woman she thought might have saved her. Nor was she ready to visit her ancestor’s grave. So she did not ask family members to see photos that would answer her question.

But, near the cemetery, the older cemetery in town, she decided that 20 years was long enough not to have the answers. At 21, Lee had not been ready to know. She wanted to think about life, not death. But, now, aware her own youth was slipping slowly away, she was ready to confront the past. She wanted the answers now.

The silence at the cemetery was startled by the slow sound of car wheels crunching leaves. Through the main gate, Lee drove. She had no idea where her ancestors might be buried. So she parked and got out, looking at the old gravestones in the mist. It was an October Saturday again, 20 years later. Irene was gone though. She was not there. Lee was there instead. She was ready to know.

Up a hill scattered with crimson leaves, Lee walked. She walked slowly, for though she had visited her more recently deceased ancestors in the memorial park outside town, she had never been to the older cemetery, and did not know where she was going. Then, she stopped. There in front of her was the face of the woman who had saved her twenty years before. But it wasn’t a ghost, the woman’s face was on a tombstone. Lee almost fainted. She expected this, but not so soon. Who was the woman? She was a flapper from the 1920s. It sounded absurd, but it was true.

Lee bent down by the tombstone and saw the face of her great grandmother for the second time. The first time had been in person, that day 20 years ago. The second time, she was looking at the picture of her great grandmother Irene’s face on her tombstone. She knew about Irene. She had researched her. But, she had avoided ever seeing her face in photographs, because she did not want to confirm what she thought, that it may have been Irene who had saved her that day from the car on the street. Ghosts don’t save people. The dead aren’t supposed to be able to help the living, right? It was crazy to think otherwise.

But here was the proof that “crazy” was reality. Lee had found out during her family research that one of her great grandmothers on her mother’s side had died at age 21 in the 1920s, giving birth to a daughter. Lee had never heard much about her before or seen a photo because nobody in the family was interested in family history. A theory occurred to her, soon after the accident 20 years before. Perhaps since her great grandmother had died at age 21, she hadn’t wanted it to happen to one of her descendents. So she had saved Lee from the car. Irene was her great grandmother’s name, and her date of death was October 7^th. Lee had almost died at age 21 on October 7^th, many years later. To Lee, that had been limited proof that her theory was reality, but here was the final proof, in the photo on the tombstone.

Lee paused by the stone in the cemetery. When she had seen Irene, Irene wasn’t dressed like a flapper. No, Irene was dressed in modern day clothing, but still was obviously not human, no human could do what she did, which was push with super human force, someone out of the way of a car. Irene had been like the wind. Lee, even now, did not want to think too much about connections between the living and the dead that she could not even comprehend. She walked down the hill to her car, and drove away.

It had taken Lee twenty years to find the answer to her question. It had taken Irene 80 years to find the answer to her question. When Irene found the answer as to how she could move on completely from earth, from clinging to a life she never got the chance to have, the answer had come in the form of saving her great granddaughter. She had walked beyond the cemetery that day, by chance saw her great granddaughter out walking, and decided to follow her, as the autumn wind. It was only when an accident happened that she realized why it had seemed right, when it usually seemed wrong, to go beyond the cemetery gates. Irene had not known it was about to happen. But she could still do what no human could do, which was to give Lee another chance at life, a chance no could give her, Irene, back in 1924, when she lay dying.

Lee had more questions to answer. Irene could never answer them, but she could watch as Lee lived a life Irene never had. Irene had died giving life, and Irene had finally left earth, completely, when she gave life again. Life comes from death, answers come in time