Jeffrey K. Riley
"Show me, O LORD, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life."
When I was young, my siblings and I used to play hide-and-seek in a small California cemetery. Those were bright, summery days filled with laughter and frantic chases amongst headstones and memorials. To me, the cemetery was my family's private playground. When my parents did language study in Manaus, there was one particular bus route that ran right beside the cemetery. It seemed a place of magic and mystery to me, with its white, sloping, walls that glittered with broken, green and brown glass. I wanted a key to those barred blue gates. I always leaned forward in my seat, my eyes memorizing the shapes and peeling colors of the many crosses and monuments to the Holy Virgin. Years later, at college in Arkansas, the cemetery near my school has become my place of solitude. I will pace the rows of graves, call out quiet, sometimes silly greetings to my silent companions, and then sit in the shade to think and write. Other days I use an obliging headstone to help me climb a magnolia tree where I watch the sun set.
Even though it is a refuge, there is one place in the cemetery that I often avoid, even shun: the Children's Corner. Chimes hang in the trees and the little graves are covered with faded stuffed animals and never wilting plastic flowers. Most of the babies were not even a year old when they died. I know because one day I went through and read their dates. The cemetery did not feel magical or fun that day, and I began deliberately leaving the Children's Corner out of my customary cemetery walk.
Yesterday, I jogged through the cemetery and muttered happy comments like "Hello there, Smiths. Looking good today!" or "Hey, Vashti. I still love your name even if no one else does!" The air was clean, and I felt the way independent heroines do at the end of a sappy novel: as though life and the world were mine to take and own.
That is when I saw him.
I might never have noticed the headstone had it not been a striking white against the cemetery's well kept emerald lawn. My eyes read the name and dates without meaning to: Jeffrey K Riley: January 1953-March 1954. I quickly turned my head to focus on the road before me. I tried to think about something else, like how ridiculous it would look to fall on my face in a cemetery. I thought about how I do not want to trip and sprain my ankles, or skin my knees. The words and numbers ran through my head, though, matching my stride and rhythm. Jeff-rey K. Riley. 53. 54. Jeff-rey K. Riley. 53. 54. Jeff-rey. Jeff-rey. 53. 54.
I thought about him all day.
Today I went back and found the headstone. It was easy, really. Though it is small, Jeffrey's grave is not easily missed. There are no other Rileys nearby so his headstone stands somewhat apart.What is more, the headstones surrounding his moss-lined white one are grey and have no small white angel atop them. The others have plenty of pithy platitudes about their long lives of "Life, Laughter, and Love." Jeffrey has no inscription; he had no time to make one.
All of this pounds through my head as I stand looking at Jeffrey's grave. I am angry with myself. To think that all this time I was treading barefoot over these people, laughing in the certainty of my youth and having the nerve to think of the cemetery as a "magical" place. Magical? Mysterious? No, this place is hallowed. It is sacred. Here in this never awakening silence I think of Jeffrey, of the life he could not live, and I hate myself for being so silly, for assuming that life and the world are in my possession when they are not. Jeffrey's headstone proves it.
When I take my next cemetery walk, I will go through the Children's Corner and read their names and dates. It is not fun or whimsical, but it is good because I want to remind myself how short a life can be. In my mind, I add this inscription to Jeffrey K. Riley's headstone just below his dates: Please Remember Me.
With God's help, I will, Jeffrey. I promise.
Psalm 39:4
When I was young, my siblings and I used to play hide-and-seek in a small California cemetery. Those were bright, summery days filled with laughter and frantic chases amongst headstones and memorials. To me, the cemetery was my family's private playground. When my parents did language study in Manaus, there was one particular bus route that ran right beside the cemetery. It seemed a place of magic and mystery to me, with its white, sloping, walls that glittered with broken, green and brown glass. I wanted a key to those barred blue gates. I always leaned forward in my seat, my eyes memorizing the shapes and peeling colors of the many crosses and monuments to the Holy Virgin. Years later, at college in Arkansas, the cemetery near my school has become my place of solitude. I will pace the rows of graves, call out quiet, sometimes silly greetings to my silent companions, and then sit in the shade to think and write. Other days I use an obliging headstone to help me climb a magnolia tree where I watch the sun set.
Even though it is a refuge, there is one place in the cemetery that I often avoid, even shun: the Children's Corner. Chimes hang in the trees and the little graves are covered with faded stuffed animals and never wilting plastic flowers. Most of the babies were not even a year old when they died. I know because one day I went through and read their dates. The cemetery did not feel magical or fun that day, and I began deliberately leaving the Children's Corner out of my customary cemetery walk.
Yesterday, I jogged through the cemetery and muttered happy comments like "Hello there, Smiths. Looking good today!" or "Hey, Vashti. I still love your name even if no one else does!" The air was clean, and I felt the way independent heroines do at the end of a sappy novel: as though life and the world were mine to take and own.
That is when I saw him.
I might never have noticed the headstone had it not been a striking white against the cemetery's well kept emerald lawn. My eyes read the name and dates without meaning to: Jeffrey K Riley: January 1953-March 1954. I quickly turned my head to focus on the road before me. I tried to think about something else, like how ridiculous it would look to fall on my face in a cemetery. I thought about how I do not want to trip and sprain my ankles, or skin my knees. The words and numbers ran through my head, though, matching my stride and rhythm. Jeff-rey K. Riley. 53. 54. Jeff-rey K. Riley. 53. 54. Jeff-rey. Jeff-rey. 53. 54.
I thought about him all day.
Today I went back and found the headstone. It was easy, really. Though it is small, Jeffrey's grave is not easily missed. There are no other Rileys nearby so his headstone stands somewhat apart.What is more, the headstones surrounding his moss-lined white one are grey and have no small white angel atop them. The others have plenty of pithy platitudes about their long lives of "Life, Laughter, and Love." Jeffrey has no inscription; he had no time to make one.
All of this pounds through my head as I stand looking at Jeffrey's grave. I am angry with myself. To think that all this time I was treading barefoot over these people, laughing in the certainty of my youth and having the nerve to think of the cemetery as a "magical" place. Magical? Mysterious? No, this place is hallowed. It is sacred. Here in this never awakening silence I think of Jeffrey, of the life he could not live, and I hate myself for being so silly, for assuming that life and the world are in my possession when they are not. Jeffrey's headstone proves it.
When I take my next cemetery walk, I will go through the Children's Corner and read their names and dates. It is not fun or whimsical, but it is good because I want to remind myself how short a life can be. In my mind, I add this inscription to Jeffrey K. Riley's headstone just below his dates: Please Remember Me.
With God's help, I will, Jeffrey. I promise.
Comments
Post a Comment