Rose
By Hailley Fargo
By the time I got to the cemetery the rain had stopped. The road, washed out, slick and
slippery, battled with my beat up car, seeing who could overtake the other. My car won. I was
here, finally.
The air was damp and the blades of grass stuck to my shoes as I made the trek to the
grave. The wind whistled and I heard was the squish, squish of my shoes. The grave was on the
far side, tucked away in a sloping corner; by the time I got there, the bottom third of my jeans
were wet.
“Rose,” I said, sitting down next to the grave. The cross and flowers I had put there a
few months ago were still standing and I played with the flowers absentmindedly while taking a
real look at the grave.
Dirt covered the site, there was no grass to be found. The ground was as dead as Rose
was. The tombstone was a small, only taking three of my hands to span its length. Made of a
red and gray granite, red and rough around the edges and a smooth, gray surface on top, tucked
away in the corner surrounded by a few other graves.
Sway, sway, rustle, rustle. Silence.
Closing my eyes I traced my fingers over the letters. My motions were slow, but
confident. A clear, vivid picture of Rose formed in front of my eyelids. Her bright, emerald
eyes, full of curiosity; her long nose and full, pink lips; her unruly blonde hair and her dimples. I
heard her laugh, I heard her talking to me. I envisioned Rose when I first met her, when she was
twenty; it was the first image that came to my mind. The ninety-three old Rose was someone I
remembered but couldn’t clearly see. Even though I couldn’t see that Rose, memories from the
seventy-three years I knew her invaded my mind and the twenty year old Rose floated in and out of these memories, laughing and smiling the entire time.
Once I got to the end of her surname, my fingers suddenly had no where to go, nothing
to trace and so Rose and the memories that had surfaced, faded slowly.
I looked up and saw the other tombstones, larger and grander than Rose’s. I saw other
members of her family, their tombstones standing proudly above Rose’s. A feeling of shame
rushed over me. She deserved so much more. The tombstone sitting in front of me wasn’t
worthy of Rose. Is was nothing like Rose; she was loud and wild and funny and beautiful. How
could this tombstone represent the ninety-three years Rose lived on this earth? And what would
she think of her tiny, insignificant tombstone, hidden among everyone else's? A tombstone
practically forgotten. I don’t know if she would be ashamed or if she would just laugh at the
irony.
A tear slid down my cheek and I brushed it away as I stood up. By now, my jeans were
soaked and there was a patch of matted grass where I had been sitting. Giving the tombstone one final look, I walked away. When I got to the wrought iron fence, I turned back. The larger and grander tombstones were blocking my view of Rose’s grave but that didn’t matter, I knew where she was.
“I’m sorry, Rose.”
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