Flowers on Your Grave

There once was a man who decided his mission was to place a small bouquet of flowers on each and every grave in the enormous cemetery behind the fence in the neighborhood where he lived. And to pray for the souls of each of the departed. Not a long prayer, but still: it was a pause and a thoughtful gesture at each stone marking each grave. These matters cannot be rushed, so this daily ritual took time. Some passages take time.

This particular graveyard was 150 years old. There were thousands of graves, many having vanished from sight due to time and neglect. Truth be told, before he began he hadn’t realized just how big the place was, and how many souls had to be honored by his humble efforts. Yet this was his journey, and his passage through it became both reason and message long after he had quit asking himself: What am I doing here? Is this worth the burden?

It took years. Eventually, he came to the final grave, the last flowers laid and the last prayer whispered. Each and every journey ends, seen or unseen, cherished or disdained, owned or abandoned. In this man's case, his accomplishment was having finished what he set out to do, even if it seemed a little crazy to others. The funny thing is that, as that last day approached, word got out in the neighborhood that he was about to finish the self-imposed task he’d started long ago.

Many of his neighbors had grown to love watching the man from a distance, dutifully setting his flowers on the graves day after day, year after year. So, as he approached what they realized would be his final act of honoring the dead, they arranged to assemble the next morning to applaud him, fete him, and congratulate the diligence of his mission. Someone even came up with a small trophy, complete with a metal plaque on the front. Now, this was not a new trophy. It had been purchased for $5 at a resale shop off Hwy 183 just behind the roller skating rink, and featured a baseball batter swinging blissfully at an unseen baseball. The small plaque read,

"Congratulations! But while you were placing all of those flowers and saying all of those prayers, another 250 souls were interred in the cemetery. Get back to work!"

But before his neighbors all assembled to acknowledge his journey, before he thought that anyone had even noticed, on that final night, he breathed in the rarified air of being arrived. It was sweet and clear, uncomplicated.

He could think of nothing more to do, so he went home and cooked himself a small meal of spaghetti and meat sauce to celebrate. And it was good…. to be arrived. He turned out the lights, mumbled his own prayers by own bedside, and went to bed; and slept soundly, uneventfully awakening the next morning to a new day. Not knowing what that day might bring .

I know this story because I drive by that very cemetery almost every day on my way home. Something fascinates me about it. I have paid some attention. And sometimes, on the rare occasion when my day ends a bit later, after the sun has set, I pass by, and imagine I see a faint light, perhaps a flashlight, and the hand of an old man placing flowers on a grave.