Memorial Day was time for meeting old friends, dead or alive, in the cemetary. The kids would be turned loose to wander among the stones while the old people visited.

The kids knew all the stones for children in the cemetary. They knew the names of the babies and why the older children had died. It was a gentle exercise in the understanding of mortality. Every year, the children ran from child-stone to child-stone, greeting old friends.

Isabel died near the turn of the last century. A child-angel, a sad cherub, stood guard over an empty cradle where Isabel lay. The cradle was filled with flowers every Memorial Day by some grieving loved one Isabel had left behind. Someone had planted an evergreen shrub beside the cradle. The shrub had grown into a large tree, nearly obscuring Isabel's cradle.

Her father had died earlier the same year. Her mother never got over the dual loss, the old folks said. Her mother died not long after a particular boy and girl had discovered Isabel's cradle. Even after her mother had died, Isabel's cradle continued to be filled with flowers.

The lesson of mortality was not lost on the visiting boy and girl. He was dying. In spite of careful adult avoidance of the subject, they both knew the boy was dying. The cemetary visits meant just a little more to them both than the adults around them knew. Isabel's cradle drew them like a magnet, and every year the cradle was full of flowers. That was soothing to the boy.

The boy died and was buried within sight of Isabel's cradle. The girl turned her sight inward. Visits to the cemetary were carried out yearly by the old folks, but the girl refused to wander. Her grief turned inward. Every year she saw the evergreen tree beside Isabel's cradle, but she did not go to visit. She did not bring flowers to the boy.

Isabel and the boy waited thirty years.

The girl grew up and got married and had children of her own. One Memorial Day her husband insisted on taking the children to the cemetary to visit the grave of the boy. The children needed to see, he said, and it would be good for them to connect with the past. The girl-woman was dragged along. She refused to wander, but her children ran among the stones. They found the babies and the children. Calling over and over to their mother, they asked why this one had died, why had that one died? She said she didn't know. She lied.

They hesitated at the foot of a giant evergreen. They called to their mother that something ususual lay inside the great tree. She ignored them. They called more urgently, and finally she joined them.

Isabel's cradle had been covered by the evergreen. No flowers filled the cradle. Lichens and moss covered Isabel's name. Only the sad child-angel standing guard over the cradle was recognizable. The stone of a woman lay a few feet to the east. The girl-woman realized that it belonged to Isabel's sister, the one who had continued to fill the cradle with flowers after Isabel's mother had died. The sister had been gone for twenty years.

Isabel's angel stood watch alone. Clutching a halo of flowers, the child-angel gazed sadly into the empty cradle. The girl-woman's children demanded to know the name of the child.

"Isabel" was all their motherr would tell them. "It's Isabel."

The children decided to adopt Isabel then and there. And every year after, they brought flowers to Isabel's cradle under the evergreen. This year, their mother let her grief thaw enough to select pink roses.

"Pink for Isabel," she said firmly. "She liked pink. She was five. And the boy liked all colors of the rainbow," she continued. And she herself picked out a bouquet of pansies. And somehow, it helped.

-- helen (lurking@more.than.not), May 27, 2002

Answers

What a touching story! What happened to the little boy? Was he your brother?

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), May 29, 2002.

Helen, I read this on Memorial Day, and was really touched. It seems that particular holiday is always downgraded to just a long weekend to get in the first bar b que, but I was glad to be reminded of loved ones past. I think I know more of the story from visiting with you, and I thank you for sharing with us. You bring all of us here, a little bit closer together.

-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), May 29, 2002.