The funeral was small, well, smaller than expected. Though Stephen had once been a popular teacher at a local high school, an active volunteer, and a loving family man, the last decades of his life was spent in absolute obscurity. Valerie, his widow, had managed to keep a social life, but Stephen's, well, it had dwindled over the years. In a moment of rest, silence in the silence after the service and before the continuation of the "I'm sorries," she took stock of the people present. Her kids and grandkids were there, some of her friends, for emotional support, and Stephen's surviving brother, a widow now of some years. No one from the school, no one from the charities he worked at, no one from his life after, the long silence before the goodbye, the years spent in the house, drinking coffee, watching the birds, walking as far as his tired legs would manage. But there, in the back of the old New England-styled church, was a woman she didn't recognize.
Her face was bowed, but it was clear she was crying large tears, a profound cry of grief, strange from a stranger. As the congregants began to file out, Valerie approached the mystery woman. The woman took no notice. Valerie saw her face. As the body was lifted, hardly an effort for her children and grandchildren, Valerie remembered. She had known this woman, years ago. It was hard to match the face and eyes, obscured by shadow and distorted with grief, with the face she knew those decades ago, but she remembered, and she bristled.
Her skin crawled as the rage flooded out from her very core. Her name was Marylynn Anderson. Who was this woman to come here, of all places? This woman, this strumpet, this attempted homewrecker. Why would she come? Was it to mock? Was it to spit in Valerie's face? Was it to destroy what peace she could manage?
She fumed in the car, silent, facing out the window, her grief transformed to rage at the cheek, the audacity of this harlot. Wasn't it enough that she tried to rip Stephen away, that she had done her best to destroy the peace that she and he had built together? What could she possibly want by coming here now?
Valerie tried to put it behind her. She tried to ignore the presence of this woman, the embodiment of her insecurities about her marriage, but could not get past the loathing and resentment. It consumed her, abducting the sorrow of the past week and replacing them with a bubbling, visceral hatred.
She could barely hear the words as the minister said the final prayers and the casket was lowered into the ground, from dust to dust. She stared blankly into space as the fire burned in her old and weary eyes.
Finally, the time had come, and she rose and faced her nemesis. The years had not been kind, and the tears did nothing to help. Marylynn Anderson stood there, sheepish, cowering like a child expecting abuse. Valerie opened her mouth, but Marylynn spoke first.
"Before you say anything, please. I just came to give you this." And she took a hardcover book out of her purse, old and worn. It was an anthology of poems that had been around for decades and had not been left unread. "Stephen gave it to me when things were... when I was falling apart. It helped me."
Valerie's mouth shifted and her jaw tensed, but Marylynn continued. "I think... he, maybe... I think he would have wanted you to have it." Valerie's eyes narrowed, but before she could offer a rebuttal, Marylynn turned and, though slowed by age and the need for a cane, fled.
Valerie looked at the book and turned it over in her hands. It was small, independently printed, and probably obscure, but that wouldn't be surprising for Stephen. He had a knack for finding rare collections hidden in the used bookstores that littered their corner of the world. They were his "gems" and his biggest hobby. This one, apparently, was no exception.
In the ride home, silent as befitting the mood, she opened the book. It opened, though with a will of its own, to a water-stained poem. And, as she read, her tears mixed with ones which had long ago warped the paper.
Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am that swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft star that shines at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die.
~ Autumn Rain - Mary Frye, 1932
