Last Generation

Taking a deep breath, she came to the brick columns that stood as a gate to the cemetery. Letting the deep breath out, she walked past them and pulled her hood tight around her. The forecast had said there would be cloud cover, but had not mentioned anything about the biting raindrops that seemed to want to take a stab at her skin every chance they could.     

Her jacket kept the rain from coming and soaking into her sweatshirt, but it didn't stop it from soaking her hood. Taking another breath, she brushed her bangs out of her eyes and went past the original addition of the cemetery, which was marked by a green street sign. It didn't take long for her to pass the first addition, again marked by a street sign, and then she was in the second addition. Walking up the small roadway she went in search of one of the grave markers.   

 Her memory must have been played tricks on her because as she searched for his grave, a grave she hadn't visited in over a year, she found herself going past almost every grave that was near a tree. Last time she was here, she could have sworn it was in a row next to a tree.     

Searching up and down the aisles, she finally came across the one she had been searching for. It didn't have any special distinguishing marks or any intricate designs, and it wasn't very large. It simply rested upon the ground with a name and a date inscribed into stone. She knelt down, ignoring the wet mud beneath her knees.
"Hi, grandpa," she whispered with a grin from ear to ear. "I'm sorry it's been a while." She continued on to tell him about all of her adventures that she had had for the past year; about the mishaps and the grand schemes that she had hatched during the lapse in time. With a shaky breath, she laughed as she went on about a particular accident that had happened on her adventure involving a little lost boy named Devon, and the scarf her grandma had made her.
"Grandma would have yelled at us if we had ever tried to pull a stunt like that little boy had done, and grandma still yells at me telling me that 'you're exactly like your grandfather, ya know? Always getting into trouble with that smart mouth of yours', and then she tries to not smile which makes me laugh even harder and get me into more trouble than before," she huffed out as she tried to catch her breath.

Sucking in the cold air, she brought herself back to the present. "I'm leaving again in the morning for another adventure. I promised you I'd go back to school and I am. But it's back on the east coast." She brushed her fingers across his name. 'Samuel Hunter' and couldn't help but grin. A grin she was told that mimicked that of her grandfather. "But don't worry. I'll be coming back every break to see you. That's a promise." She kissed her hand and brushed it against the stone before she stood up. "See you later, Grandpa."    

She walked back down the road she came, but stopped at the original addition and felt a wave rush over her. The second addition, even the first addition, had flowers and pinwheels and little things spread across the graves as visitors came to spread some color for their loved ones that had passed, but this original addition only showed colors of green and brown and every shade of gray imaginable with the stones sticking up across the way. They shouted out their existence, yet no one took notice of them any longer. They were very seldom visited    

She couldn't help but think about how long ago they had probably passed, and that the generations since would not know who they were. No one was visiting their graves because no one lived any longer that knew or cared about their passing. They were cold slabs of stone yearning for attention and yet, they would remain lonesome in the wind and rain and snow because time marched on.   

 A pain went through her heart for all the lonesome souls that lay in their graves and how one day no one would visit her grandfather anymore because no one would know who he was. He was a great memory to her, but she would probably be the last generation to visit him. She rubbed a sleeve across her face to take some of the rain away and began the descent back to her home. Her mind was scattered and left behind in the cemetery; even as her body was departing from it.