It was a dark, cold and forlorn night. The only sounds to be heard where the still whispers of the wind and the leisurely but ever lasting beating of the rain against the world. The silence was deafening, the air was chill with a cold heart.
There alone she stood. Amongst the graves with the ones she loved most. It was late. The darkness was caving in around her, yet she still stood. Standing up to it all, as if the misery of the rain where not to keep her back from her intentions.
There she wept. By the single grave, she sat and wept for everything that was lost in that one being. So much invested, yet lost within a single instant. The rain slowly pattered against her back, as if to tell her to leave what was lost in the past. As if telling her to let go, but she could not let go of all the happiness she had ever known in this lifetime. What brought joy to that creature was gone, and she was not going to let the dead become a memory of the forgotten.
Cold, broken, bleeding and alone, one last time she laid the roses. With them, she left her distant memories, her every being. The blood on the roses would stain the soil forever. To remind them, that what was once blood and bone, would remain forever broken and shattered by the immense loss of love.
And next to the single tombstone, there was an empty one. No words carved, no body resting, just a rock, soon to become a corpses doorstep. She looked at it for a moment, as if pondering who was to sleep next to the one she loved most.
Her coat was beginning to get heavy from the rain, the air as chilly as ever, the shadows setting in. She was fading away, into the nothing she had become, and it was then she realized what she had to do.
As she turned away from the site, she saw the gravedigger. He was working regardless of the lonely rain. He dug the grave, with immense pride, as if this was to be his bidding. The rain slowly but surely working its cold depression into his heart. He stood unaccompanied, with his shovel for a moment, and then continued with his work. He heard the sounds of her silent foot steps and looked up only to see her sad eyes. Her coat sopping wet and her umbrella collapsed he asked:
“What is it you’re doing here so late? And why are you not using your umbrella to shelter you from the rain?”
She looked into his solemn eyes and could tell that the loneliness of being unloved was getting into his soul and ever beating heart. The coldness of the air was finally setting in on him. That his life was exhausted and that his being was no longer cared for. Again, she looked away, and up into the sky as she explained:
“As the rain falls on just and unjust alike, let your heart be untroubled by judgments and let your kindness rain on all. I would like to embrace the fact that the sky is crying with me, that no longer, I shed these tears alone”
He looked up at the sky, rain pouring into his heart, and he watched. For the first time in his life, he enjoyed the silence of being alone with it. He was accepted by something, un-judged and willing to be forgotten. Speechless, they stood, accepting the cold water on their faces, knowing that those rain drops had much more meaning to them both.
With a kind expression he turned his head and asked:
“Why is it you are here?”
To no surprise, she explained to him why she had come to say her final farewell:
“To lose something of great investment is to lose a part of you. It has been some time since I came to let go a little more of my heart, but I think I have given her all that I have. For this one last chance, I felt the rain with her. Now please, do me something that will greatly have you admired in my eyes”
Knowing that what she asked was a favor, he simply nodded, for she had spoken words to him that he was longing to hear. Words of acceptance.
“That grave, next to hers...” She pointed to the site where she once sat.
He glanced.
“Please, write the words, “Don’t ever wake up” on the tombstone…”
He was surprised that she would ask for something like that. To have something written like that on a tombstone where no dead rested. And why the ever-lasting sleep? Why would she not want her dead to rest in peace? Forever in the afterlife? Puzzled, he asked:
“But why? There is no dead sleeping amongst that soil…”
She looked downward, and then precisely into his eyes.
He could see the pain in her eyes. How heavy her heart was, how she carried such anger with a loving heart. The tears where not there, covered by the rain of sorrow.
“In life, we cannot avoid change. We cannot avoid loss. Freedom and happiness are found in the flexibility and ease with which we move through change. Yet I cannot accept such a change in me. Everything that has a beginning has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well. Yet I cannot”
He stood silent; confused at the words she had just spoken. He could tell that she had not made her peace with the changes and altering of her life, and that she was not at ease with how she was living in this life.
She turned away, walking into the mist that brought her there. She had no more words to be spoken, the silence was deafening, yet it still was there. As she trailed off into the distance, the regret carried on her shoulders, she remembered something. She turned around, to see the gravedigger alone and she said:
“That grave, please, dig it shallow, so that I can feel the rain”
He looked up at her, knowing that her intentions where set. He felt as if nothing he could say could ever curb her hearts decision, such a being in despair. He merely nodded once more.
She looked one last time into his eyes, a far distance away and spoke :
“Goodnight and farewell”
She turned away only to hear the gravedigger say,
“Don’t ever wake up.”
And with a silent whisper she said:
“I won’t”
And with that, she faded away, finally accepting the nothing she was.
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