Dandelions (1)

Dandelions1

The late afternoon sun beat down on her head, reminding her that there were a million and one places she’d rather be. The manicured cemetery for the rich and recently deceased ranked somewhere below Death Valley in the middle of July, and just above a pit full of tarantulas. It was one of those midsummer days where the stagnant air lay around your shoulders like a thick woolen blanket; warm, but far from comfortable. It was prickly, itchy, and far too warm. It was almost reminiscent of those family portraits your parents used to make you take once a year, complete with the itchy formal clothing, awkward poses, and forced smiles. 2

Marianne’s expression hardly resembled the forced smiles from those family portraits. It was more of a grimace; a look of empty desperation crossed with utter confusion. She was lost in more ways than one. The funeral home director had given her a map, but it was impossible to understand and she was already completely turned around. She didn’t even know what she was doing here. The man-made green hills seemed to stretch on forever, dotted with a myriad of little white tombstones, each one exactly like the last, save for the words carved upon them. Her head ached painfully and she knew this wasn’t where he belonged. Both of them had always hated places like this, places where everything was the same, where it made no difference which way you looked, because the right side was identical to the left.3

The sun was burning through her scalp, pelting her mind with thoughts of him. Images of his dark hair and hazel eyes entwined themselves with the sun-spotted reality of carefully landscaped ponds and million dollar sepulchers. She thinks she hates him. Hates him for ending up in a place like this, for dragging her out here in the middle of the worst drought they had seen in a hundred years. She hated him for leaving her alone, and for making everything so complicated, but mostly she hated him for beating her to the punch, for ending things before she got the chance to.4

A wave of nausea and dizziness washes over her and she takes refuge beneath one of the massive mausoleums, taking comfort in the sliver of shade it provided. Breathing heavily she closes her eyes, calming herself. She doesn’t want to be here, she doesn’t want to be walking these twisted, convoluted paths, searching for his grave. She supposes it’s only fitting that she should have to search for his grave in much the same way she had spent much of her life unknowingly searching for him. 5

She’d been as lost then as she was now, sitting beneath the unrelenting sun. She’d been running from grave to grave searching for a moment of repose; a moment of respite from the merciless sun that sought to destroy her life. And she had found none. There had been no reprieve from the burning light, from the constant pain, until it had become almost unbearable. And then he’d appeared, much like this mausoleum to take the pain away for a little while, to offer her that much needed moment of respite.6

Opening her eyes, she squints against the sun and turns the map around, still trying to find his headstone in this mess of identical marble grave markers. She wasn’t going to give up on this, not on him; not after everything they had been through. She wasn’t going to let him down. Standing up, her knees buckle slightly and she steadies herself on the cool marble wall, wishing she hadn’t worn heels. But she had and they reminded her every step of they way that their relationship had never been easy. Their relationship had been complicated to say the least; it had been convoluting and difficult, bordering on impossible at times. Their relationship had been like walking through this cemetery. It had been terrifying, desperate, and entirely confusing. It had made about as much sense as the map she held tightly in her hands. But just like the map it had been real and it had given her a sense of hope. It had made her believe that there was a method to this madness, that she would always be able to find a way out. 7

She wasn’t a Christian, but this walk; this agonizing trek across the two and a half mile long cemetery seemed like her passion and his death her cross to bear. The heel of her shoe caught on a loose rock and she stumbled, falling to the ground, a muted cry of despair escaping her mouth. She couldn’t do this. She was lost, hopelessly lost. The cemetery was vast; vacant and false. It was consuming her, conquering her, holding her hostage against her will. The thousands of square feet were closing in on her; the perfectly designed ponds full of koi fish drowning her. 8

Shakily pulling herself together she stands and brushes the grass from her skirt and continues on, she’s getting close now, or so the map says. Six more identical rows to go, and then four, and then one. 9

And then she’s there, standing self-consciously near the recently turned soil, pushing away the reality of his death. There are tears in her eyes, but she isn’t crying, not yet. There’s too much anger in her to cry, but there’s too much sadness for her to scream, so instead she sits precariously next to the headstone, the prickly grasses poking through the thin cotton of her black skirt. She hardly notices the dry itchy grasses. She hardly notices the ants forming a thin black line, crawling their way across her knees. Nothing is real to her, not the sun, not the stagnant air, not the prickly grasses, or the crawling insects.10

She wants to talk to him, but she doesn’t know how. She isn’t religious so she can’t pray, and despite what the rest of the world assumes, she isn’t insane; she can’t talk to dead people. She wishes she could, but she can’t. Her bitter silence stretches across the yards and yards of million dollar family plots and artfully arranged trees. Her thoughts aren’t so artfully arranged; they’re raw and real and she can’t sort them out. If he were here she would hug him and scream at him and slap him and tell him how much she misses him, but he’s not here, no one is. It’s four o’clock on a Thursday afternoon, and the cemetery is deserted.  11

As deserted as she feels without him. For all the complications of their relationship she had honestly loved him. It had taken years to find him, years of searching and running, years of reading maps, and falling hopelessly to the ground in fits of anger and frustration, much like it had taken her hours to find his grave. And when she met him, time froze, just as it had when she sat down. 12

Her mind was instantly overrun with a hundred thousand different thoughts, nothing about their relationship made any sense to her. It hadn’t been love at first sight, they met and talked and parted ways. There were no sparks or fireworks, nothing but a quick conversation; hello, how are you, and good-bye. The sparks came later, after the fits of hatred and inseparable closeness. But when the sparks flew, they flew. It went beyond a fireworks show, it was a nuclear war; brilliant flashes of light, leaving behind miles of desolation. It was unhealthy, self-destructive, even dangerous, but somehow completely and totally right. It was insane, more insane than even the sum of their insanities, but it was genuine and it was real. It was something she could hold on to.13

And then he killed himself. They’d talked about it on occasion, about how easy it would be to just end it all and get away from everything they hated. But he’d promised her he wouldn’t. He’d promised her so many times… 14

And now she’s sitting here, legs crossed, muscles cramping, in the middle of the driest summer in years. Her eyes are shut tightly against the tears and she looks so much older than eighteen, but that’s all she is; she turned eighteen last April. He’d been even younger than her; he turned eighteen three days before he died. She was so angry, so mind numbingly furious at him, at his parents, at her own parents. It was the kind of anger that made her want to slam her fists into the marble headstone, the kind of anger that made her want to drive her Toyota off a bridge and into the concrete below. It was the kind of anger that built and built until you exploded. She was so close to exploding. 15

And then she took a breath and the anger lessened, guilt filling the holes it left behind. And she couldn’t hate him. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t. Hating him for escaping this life was like hating the gentle breeze that rose up from the stagnant air around her for blowing dirt onto her clothing. It wasn’t possible, at least not for her. 16

She just wishes she’d been enough to keep him here, because no matter how cliché it sounds, she doesn’t know what to do without him.17

There’s a dandelion growing on his grave. She picks it up and gently blows on it, watching the downy seeds fall onto the freshly turned soil, there was nothing left. No hope and no guilt and no anger. Just a burning sun and a stagnant breeze, and the gentle wafting of an army of feathery white dandelion seeds. It reminds her of when she was a kid, and how she used to always pick dandelions to make wishes on them. She always made the same wish; that someday she would find her prince charming. Well she found him, and two years after they met, he died. 18

She thinks she might bring a bouquet of dandelions with her next time she visits; maybe he’ll appreciate the irony of it.19